Examination of witnesses (Questions 220 - 239)
TUESDAY 9 JUNE 1998
SIR JOHN
KERR, KCMG,
MR FRANCIS
RICHARDS, CMG,
CVO,
MR ROLAND
SMITH, CMG
and MR ROY
DIBBLE
Mr Wilshire
220. I only now would observe that if I
heard you correctly, when trying not to answer my question, you
said it was not your place to interrogate and then subsequently,
when you did answer my question, you indicated you had interrogated,
you had asked.
(Sir John Kerr) I have not interrogated.
221. Interrogate and ask mean much the same
to me.
(Sir John Kerr) I am sorry, I can tell you that
there is no record of ephemeral side copy papers in the Foreign
Office. It is not the practice. Of course, if it is very highly
classified paper, that is different, even if it is not addressed
to the Minister in question. So I can tell you from office practice,
and that office practice is correct.
Mr Rowlands
222. Can I lift the eyes a little and develop
one aspect of this? Since your meeting you have kindly sent the
Committee the document from the Non-Proliferation Department on
guidance for desk officers, et cetera, on export licences, and
I assume such guidance would apply with more applicability if
in fact there was a proposed breach of licences? The procedures
we are talking about would apply similarly?
(Sir John Kerr) You mean paragraph 17?
223. No, paragraph 10 of your document.
(Sir John Kerr) Perhaps I can ask Mr Smith to
answer.
224. I will just read it out. It says, "In
cases of doubt or sensitivity, ..." this is in relation to
exports of arms, "... departments should also consider consulting
Ministers." If there are doubts or sensitivity on breaches
of arms, should Ministers be consulted?
(Mr Smith) The normal practice when there is a
possible breach would be to consult with Customs, who are responsible
for investigating that. That is what was done on this occasion.
225. With a matter of doubt or sensitivity,
the Department should also consider consulting Ministers. On an
issue of this kind, surely, Ministers should be consulted?
(Mr Smith) Taking the matter generically, I think
that would depend on how the investigation developed. The investigation
might, for example, show in fact the allegation was not true at
all.
226. So you are suggesting you would wait
until you found the strength of the allegation before bringing
this matter to the attention of Ministers?
(Mr Smith) I think you would always have to do
that, yes.
227. The next sentence reads, "It is
essential that desk officers clear with NPD ...", that is
your department, is it not?
(Mr Smith) It is one of the departments which
reports to me.
228. "... (and where appropriate with
HRPD and other relevant departments) draft submissions, draft
answers to PQs ..." et cetera. So would the type of thing
we have just been discussing, PQs, debates and the rest of it,
would those papers be lifted above departmental level to NPD?
(Mr Smith) NPD is a department, the Non-Proliferation
Department.
229. It says, "It is essential that
desk officers clear with NPD ..." these things.
(Mr Smith) This is specifically talking about
submissions of export licence applications as such. If you are
asking would a geographical department in the Foreign Office,
preparing a brief for a Minister for a debate, clear the brief
with the Non-Proliferation Department if there were matters covered
in which the Non-Proliferation Department had an interest, then
the answer is yes.
230. And breaches of any export licences
and particularly potential breaching of United Nations Resolution
would certainly come up to you, would they?
(Mr Smith) The fact it came to the Non-Proliferation
Department would not necessarily mean it came to me.
231. No, I am talking about NPD.
(Mr Smith) The department report to me, but they
do not of course report everything which crosses their desks.
You have to understand that the Non-Proliferation Department are
the lead department on the general question of export licensing.
They are also the lead department when matters arise relating
to weapons of mass destruction but they are not the lead department
in relation to arms embargoes on particular countries, there the
geographical department is in the lead. So if the question was
one relating to an arms embargo, there would not necessarily be
any aspect on which the geographical department needed to consult
or clear with the Non-Proliferation Department.
232. Reverting to Sir John, given this experience
and indeed given this morning's experience, would it be a good
idea to review the procedures, that where there are doubts or
sensitivities on issues of breaches of arms embargoes and possible
proceedings of the kind that Customs & Excise do, Ministers
be more promptly and earlier informed?
(Sir John Kerr) It is certainly a matter on which
I am giving some thought, Mr Rowlands, but we have to remember
that the Restricted Enforcement Unit is looking at about 500 cases
a quarter and about 20 a quarter of these are being referred to
it by the Foreign Office. A very large number of these cases probably
turned out on examination to be insubstantial. I rather agree
with how Mr Smith answered your question first, that it would
depend on how the matter further developed.
233. But something that gets into the newspaper,
the Observer writes a huge great piece about it, it has
a sort of public flavour to it, you do not think those sorts of
things should be put up to Ministers faster and earlier?
(Sir John Kerr) It is certainly a matter to which
I am giving a good deal of thought.
234. One final question and then I will
finish. You said in questions 54 and 55 of your evidence when
I asked you a simple question about whether from all your investigations
had the Office in any way been encouraged or indeed could its
activities or actions be interpreted as encouraging the Sandline
affair: "No such contacts could be interpreted in that way
by any reasonable sensible independent person". Do you still
stand by that statement to the Committee?
(Sir John Kerr) Yes, I still have seen no papers
which suggest that any official in the Foreign Office was in any
way complicit.
Mr Rowlands: Thank
you.
Chairman: Sir John,
before I move on to the Restricted Enforcement Unit and Sir Peter,
I would like to sweep up some of the matters arising. I know that
Sir John Stanley has a question and I will go around other colleagues.
Sir John Stanley
235. Permanent Secretary, could you tell
the Committee whether you have issued or whether there exists
in the Department instructions to private secretaries of Minister's
offices as to whether they should put all telegrams received that
are addressed PSS of S or PSM of S or to the private secretaries
of the relevant Ministers, whether they should put those into
Ministers' boxes or not?
(Sir John Kerr) I have given no such instruction,
Sir John, and I would not wish to give any such instruction. I
think if we gave Ministers the 240 telegrams received in the Foreign
Office every day and the 400 telegrams sent out by the Foreign
Office every day, Ministers reading 640 telegrams a day approximately
would have no time to do anything else. There has to be a selecting,
sifting job done by the private secretary.
236. So you are saying that you leave it
entirely to the discretion of the private secretary, that when
a telegram is addressed specifically to a Minister's office it
is for the private secretary to decide whether or not the Minister
sees it? That is the practice you are following, is it?
(Sir John Kerr) Very few telegrams are specifically
addressed to a Minister's office, they tend to be addressed to
the Foreign Office and then distributed by the communicators under
the advice of the lead department appropriately. There are some
600 telegrams a day that could be read by the Foreign Secretary
if the instruction given to his private office was that the Foreign
Secretary must see all telegrams. That would be completely absurd.
It is the private secretary's function to make sure that the Foreign
Secretary or other Ministers have drawn to their attention, either
by giving them the text or by telling them what it says, key developments
reported in the telegrams.
237. Are you saying the 600 telegrams in
toto coming into the Foreign Office or 600 addressed to PSS of
S? What are you saying?
(Sir John Kerr) I cannot remember a telegram addressed
to PSS of S. If you mean, Sir John, telegrams that are distributed
to the private office, the distribution list at the end, that
number would be about 400. He would see about 60 per cent. I am
sorry, his office would see about 60 per cent of the telegram
traffic. It would be absolutely absurd to expect any Minister
to plough through all of them. I read them all at weekends as
it happens, I learn a lot of very interesting things.
238. As you will know, the Foreign Secretary
wrote on 22 May to the former Minister of State in the Foreign
Office, Douglas Hogg MP, and he disclosed in that letter that
"From 1 May 1997 to 18 May 1998 the FCO received 141 telegrams
from Freetown, 102 of which were copied to my office", that
is the Foreign Secretary's office, "and that of my honourable
friend, Minister of State, Mr Lloyd. During the period when Freetown
was evacuated the High Commissioner operated out of a hotel room
in Conakry and communicated with the FCO by fax. No record has
been kept of the total number of faxes received during this period,
however 48 of these faxes were re-transmitted as FCO telegrams,
43 of which were copied to ministerial offices as above."
Can I ask you, Sir John, are you satisfied, having no doubt yourself
reviewed all the telegrams in question, given the Legg enquiry,
that the appropriate telegrams were copied to the offices of the
Foreign Secretary and the Ministers of State? Were you satisfied
furthermore that the private offices did adequately inform their
respective Ministers as to the central contents of those telegrams?
(Sir John Kerr) I have no concerns about the system.
I have no concerns about this particular case, but I am not fully
informed. Sir Thomas Legg will be fully informed in due course.
I have not cross-examined as to which of the telegrams in question
which Ministers saw and which Ministers did not. I have not done
that.
Mr Godman
239. Incidentally, Ted Rowlands had to leave
because he has got a group of visitors from his constituency.
Where documents are drawn to the attention of the Minister by
his private office does he or she have to indicate formally that
those documents have been put in front of him or her?
(Sir John Kerr) No. That would depend. The papers
in the box overnight come out with markings on them. If you go
in and show the man something you do not actually ask him to get
his pen out. You might even tell him without actually showing
him the bit of paper.
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