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Letter from the Editor of The Guardian
to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
I was surprised, after your phone call on Thursday
afternoon, to read your letter to The Times today, which
gives the clear impression that The Guardian has been
mainly responsible for a delay in your examining the allegations
against Neil Hamilton and other MPs.
The case against Mr Hamilton and his colleagues
was sent to you on 8 October in the form of a long letter and
a copy of the amended defence. In our conversation on Thursday
you told me that you were happy to regard the amended defence
as a "prosecution" document. That document, read with
supporting evidence, does make the case against Hamilton and
some of his colleagues. You have also received specific charges
- if not full supporting evidence - against the other MPs.
You will know that much delay was caused by
your argument that we would have to surrender our right to publish
any supporting material we sent you since it would attract parliamentary
privilege. I cannot believe that any newspaper would agree to
surrender its copyright on its own material to a parliamentary
committee and I hardly think it fair to lay the blame for the
time needed to settle this point at our door.
Further delays were caused by the need to seek
the agreement of Mr Greer and Mr Hamilton for us to submit documents
on their behalf. Mr Hamilton's agreement had not been given by
the time you received the main bundle of documents on 28 November,
from which time you have been in consultation with our lawyers.
Your telephone call on Thursday was the first intimation from
you since 3 December that you lacked further material.
You chose not to avail yourself of my offer
in October of being taken through the documentation in our posession
by either of the main lawyers familiar with the papers - a procedure
which would rapidly have established which documentation was
relevant and thereby help minimise delays.
Geraldine Proudler has, I know, been doing her
best to keep you supplied with further documentation while carrying
out her other duties. She wrote to me on 17 December to say that
she was formulating notes for your benefit on the other MPs you
were investigating.
I have pointed out before that we consider it
unsatisfactory that a complainant to you should be forced to
meet the very considerable costs involved in the time-consuming
business of researching, arranging and copying material.
Geraldine wrote to me on 17 December as follows:
"I am working on notes for Downey on each of the individual
MPs he is investigating, and I will send these to you for your
comments before I send them to him. From The Guardian's
point of view, however, I am concerned that this is quite a time-consuming
exercise, and it illustrates why an investigation as this only
works where those involved in the investigation are prepared
to commit resources to providing Downey with what he needs. In
my view the sensible way for this exercise to have been conducted
would have been for Nigel Pleming and his team to have come over
to our office to see exactly what was here, and to identify what
they needed . . . "
In all these circumstances I must
say I think it slightly surprising that you should publicly criticise
The Guardian without first approaching us directly with
your views.
Alan Rusbridger
3 January 1997
Letter from the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards to Mr Alan Rusbridger 7 January 1997
I have no wish to pursue this argument in "public"
but I do feel you have been disingenuous in the presentation
of events set out in your letter to me of 3 January and that published
in yesterday's Times. Your letter of 8 October was
specifically intended to give me "some idea" of the
scope of inquiry you thought should be involved. Enclosed was
a draft amended defence "so that you can get some
idea of the way in which we would have justified our original
allegations . . . " and "give you some sense of the
way in which the matter goes far beyond Hamilton and Greer .
. . "
Similarly the material provided on 28 November
was described by Geraldine Proudler as "preliminary"
and a "draft trial bundle". She acknowledged that the
letter represented "only documents which are relevant to
Mr Hamilton and Mr Greer for the purposes of the libel action,
and only at the stage the case had reached when it was settled."
It specifically omitted documents relating to other MPs, and other
relevant material "such as witness statements, research
documents, pleadings and discovery documents."
I felt
entitled to assume that you were aware of this position; and that
we have been badgering Geraldine Proudler since then to provide
confirmation of the allegations and the relevant supporting evidence.
Nigel Pleming has also been seeking information and documents
from her.
It was only in mid-December that we received
confirmation from Geraldine Proudler that we could rely on the
draft amended defence for the allegations against Mr Hamilton;
and only last week that we received from her the relevant witness
statements. We have still had no statement of allegations against
other MPs (indeed we do not know whether these relate only to
those mentioned in your letter of 18 October or to the larger
number referred to in the press): nor have we received the supporting
evidence. All this was promised to arrive before Christmas.
We have not, contrary to your assertion, declined
the offer of a meeting with Ms Proudler to go through the documentation
- but there seems no point in arranging such a meeting until we
have received all the relevant allegations.
Sir Gordon Downey
7 January 1997
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