|
6) ALLEGATIONS RELATING TO
NON-REGISTRATION OF INTERESTS (Contd.)
e) Sir Peter Hordern
642. Sir Peter Hordern
was employed as a consultant to House of Fraser between 1982 and
1991 at a salary, according to Mr Al Fayed, of £24,000 per
annum. Throughout this period, Sir Peter registered his
interest under the "Employment or Office" category as
"Consultant to House of Fraser plc". He was not, at
that time, required to declare the amount of his payments and
did not do so.
643. Sir Peter received
other benefits from Mr Al Fayed, including accommodation, with
his wife and daughter, at the Ritz hotel in Paris in 1988 and
a stay, with his wife, for a few days at Balnagown Castle at the
same time as the Hamiltons in 1989. Sir Peter claimed
that the Ritz stay had been undertaken at the "most pressing
invitation" of Mr Al Fayed, who wanted Sir Peter to
satisfy himself that, contrary to the assertions of Lonrho, the
Al Fayeds had the resources to invest in House of Fraser and,
in particular, Harrods.
644. Sir Peter did
not register these benefits. He maintained that the rules in
force at the time did not require him to declare them separately,
since his overall interest in House of Fraser was already a matter
of public record in the Register.
f) Sir
Michael Grylls
645. The nature and purpose
of the various payments made to Sir Michael Grylls by Mr
Greer and the Unitary Tax Campaign have already been considered
in the context of the allegations relating to a "slush fund"
operated by Mr Greer using money provided by Mr Al Fayed.[303]
646. Sir Michael's
failure to register the commission payments he had received from
Mr Greer separately (that is to say in a form which distinguished
them from his declaration of a general interest in respect of
IGA and/or the Unitary Tax Campaign) was the subject of an inquiry
by the Select Committee on Members' Interests in 1990.
647. Since Sir Michael
has prayed in aid the report of the Select Committee, published
in July 1990, as confirming that he had not committed any breach
of the rules of the House relating to registration, it is worth
recording the Committee's main conclusions. These were that:
- it
might not have been readily apparent from the categories contained
in the introduction to the annual Register that commission payments
of a minor or casual kind should be registered;
- there
was no doubt in principle that such payments should be
registered and the Registrar had reminded Members of this in his
annual letter in December 1989;
- there
had been no "clear infringement of the rules";
- Sir
Michael's registration entries were "insufficiently detailed";
- the
Register was devalued if entries within it were incomplete or
misleading;
- it
would have been better if Sir Michael had made an entry
along the lines of "Single payment(s) for the introduction
of a client to Ian Greer Associates".
648. It should also be recorded
that, in addition to understating the number of commission payments
from Mr Greer, Sir Michael, in his evidence to the Committee,
did not mention the fact that he had received, and was still receiving,
three other types of payment linked directly or indirectly to
Mr Greer, namely: fees from the Unitary Tax Campaign (Mr Greer's
clients); fees in connection with his services on behalf of UTC
which were paid by Mr Greer and recovered from UTC; and "top-up"
fees from Mr Greer for the UTC work.
649. This omission on Sir
Michael's part has to be seen in the context of the facts
that:
- Sir
Michael's reply to the original complaint (which alleged non-registration
of an introduction fee from Mr Greer) made no reference to individual
payments but claimed that his interests in relation to Mr Greer
had been fully declared; and it set out his Register entries for
the relevant years;
- the
Registrar's letter to Sir Michael following up that reply
asked whether "the payments" (presumably any payments
covered by Sir Michael's IGA-related Register entries)
related to UTC.
g) Lady
Olga Maitland
650. The allegations against
Lady Olga Maitland are twofold, and were set out in the book Sleaze:
(i) that
in 1992, before she was elected to the House, she received £3,000
from Mr Greer in return for services she had provided, including
lobbying the government of Kuwait for payment of a debt owed to
Mr Greer; and that this payment was not registered;[304]
(ii) that,
after her election, she lobbied on behalf of the Royal Marsden
Hospital, including through the tabling of a Parliamentary question
and the initiation of an Adjournment debate, knowing that the
hospital was a client of Mr Greer and that both she herself and
her husband had benefitted from commission payments from Mr Greer.[305]
651. Lady Olga's
explanation in respect of the first allegation was as follows:
- in
late 1991 and early 1992 she intervened on Mr Greer's behalf with
the Kuwaiti government;
- on
31 January 1992 Mr Greer wrote to her to say that the money owed
to him had come through and enclosing a cheque to her for £2,000,
which was later topped up with a further cheque for £1,000;
- on
9 April she was elected to the House for the first time;
- later
in 1992 Mr Greer asked her if, in order to help him keep his books
in order, she would send him an invoice for the £3,000;
- as
both the work for Mr Greer and the payment for it occurred before
she was elected, no question of registration arose.
652. On this point, I noted
that the invoice was curiously worded and could be interpreted
as indicating that the work to which it related was performed
at about the same time as the invoice was rendered.
653. On the second allegation,
Lady Olga stated:
- her
campaign on behalf of the Royal Marsden was entirely a constituency
matter, and nothing to do with Mr Greer's engagement as a lobbyist
by the hospital;
- when
she initiated an Adjournment debate on the subject she did receive
briefing material from Mr Greer, but no payment was either sought
or received.
654. The Official Report
indicates that no declaration of interest was made by Lady
Olga in introducing the Adjournment debate on the Royal Marsden
on 29 January 1993. It was The Guardian's contention[306]
that Lady Olga should have disclosed what, in their view, was
the relevant fact that she had a financial relationship with Mr
Greer, who had been retained to lobby on behalf of the hospital.
h) Mr
Gerald Malone
655. The allegations against
Mr Malone are that:
- on
11 November 1985, when PPS to the then Secretary of State for
Trade and Industry, Mr Leon Brittan, he met Mr Al Fayed at the
suggestion of Mr Greer to discuss the dispute between House of
Fraser and Lonrho;
- shortly
after that meeting he spoke to the Secretary of State on Mr Al
Fayed's behalf (as evidenced by a letter from Mr Greer to Mr Al
Fayed, dated 13 November 1985, in which Mr Greer said that Mr
Malone "spoke to me yesterday after he had talked to
Leon Brittan"). The letter added that Mr Malone's
suggestion of a letter to the independent directors of The
Observer "was considered to be a good and worthwhile
idea";
- in
May 1987, as a reward for those actions he received £1,000
from Mr Greer as a donation towards his election campaign funds;
- the
donation was not registered.
656. Mr Malone's
response to the allegations was that:
- the
meeting on 11 November 1985 with Mr Al Fayed was felt by officials
to be a courteous response to a request for a meeting with the
Secretary of State; Mr Malone reported the gist of the
discussion with Mr Al Fayed to Mr Brittan and, as far as he was
concerned, that was the end of the matter;
- the
ultimate origin of the £1,000 donation from Mr Greer to his
1987 election fighting fund was not disclosed to him;
- his
recollection was that the donation had been described as being
"biased towards marginal seats"; he had been unaware
of any association between the money from which the donation came
and Mr Al Fayed; and he did not make any connection with the meeting
with Mr Al Fayed some 18 months before;
- he
had not been in a position to register the donation - even if
it had qualified under the 25 per cent rule - since he was not
elected in 1987 and did not return to the House until 1992.
657. On Mr Malone's
final point, the position is that his declared expenses for the
1987 election were £5,022.78 and that, accordingly, a £1,000
donation represented just under 20 per cent of the total.
303 See
paras 236-271. Back
304 Sleaze,
p 118. Back
305 Sleaze,
p 139. Back
306 See
Appendix 32. Back
|
