LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR OF ASH TO THE
CLERK OF THE COMMITTEE (TB 18C)
HEALTH COMMITTEE
HEARING 16 FEBRUARY
I write to follow up the Health Committee evidence
session of 16 February. I believe that excellent progress was
made, and two particularly important developments occurred.
First, in response to questioning from Dr Brand,
the Chairman of BAT, Mr Broughton agreed that the Audit Committee
of the BAT Board under Rupert Pennant-Rea would examine the evidence
and produce a report. This is an important and welcome development
and I think marks a breakthrough in ending BAT's attempt at stonewalling
and denial. I hope that the Committee will consider requiring
Bat to disclose the terms of reference of this inquiry and the
final report, even if the latter cannot be provided in time for
inclusion in the Committee's main report.
Second, Mrs Wise insisted that if BAT believes
the quotes we have provided are selective and out of context,
then BAT should respond to the evidence point by point and clarify
the context. This would allow BAT to show the Committee how and
why the documents do not refer to the control of smuggling or
say what ASH believes they say. I hope that the whole Committee
supports Mrs Wise's determination to require BAT to explain rather
than to avoid confronting the evidence head on. If BAT has a good
case, surely it is in everyone's interests to see the company's
explanation. This would be one reasonable outcome to expect from
BAT's own Audit Committee inquiry.
I take very seriously Mr Burns concern that
we may have provided selective and out-of-context quotations to
make our points—a concern shared by Mr Clarke and Mr Broughton.
I disagree of course, but I wish to do all we can to reassure
the Committee on this point. It is always difficult to decide
the appropriate balance between incomplete brevity and overwhelming
volume and I feel with the short notice for us to produce evidence
and for the Committee to read it, we got it about right. However,
I will be providing the evidence we have in full in the form of
a CD-ROM containing copies of all the original documents we have
based our case on, and appropriate explanatory commentary. I plan
to make this available to the Committee shortly, and also to supply
copies of the CD to the Department of Trade and Industry, and
to Mr Clarke, Mr Broughton and Mr Pennant-Rea of BAT to assist
with their Audit Committee inquiry.
Finally, I was asked to provide a chronology
of my correspondence with Mr Clarke.
31 January
ASH published about 150 BAT smuggling-related
documents on our internet site. On the same day, I faxed a letter
(enclosed) to Mr Clarke suggesting that he view the evidence on
our web site and that, as the senior non-executive director, he
hold an internal inquiry into it. This site also has links to
other sources such as The Guardian and Center for Public
Integrity.
3 February
Mr Clarke responded in The Guardian,
apparently attempting to absolve BAT of any misconduct.
7 February
Mr Clarke replied to my letter, suggesting I
had based my views on the "rather far fetched interpretation
that The Guardian newspaper placed on isolated sentences
trawled from eight million pages . . .".
14 February
ASH e-mailed a further memorandum to the Committee
and we understand that this was promptly forwarded to BAT.
16 February
Mr Clarke claimed before the Committee that
he had not seen these documents until the day before—as
the Financial Times put it the following day, "Mr
Clarke said it was absurd that documents were being sprung on
the company at short notice."
I believe that Mr Clarke acted far too hastily
in sounding the "all-clear" for BAT in his Guardian
article only three days after the evidence was published, and
apparently without reviewing the evidence at all carefully. He
should instead have taken the suggestion of an inquiry seriously.
I am glad that Mr Broughton has now done this and regret that
Mr Clarke did not choose this more responsible path from the outset.
18 February 2000
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