APPENDIX
Memorandum submitted by the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards
Complaints against Mr William Hague
MP
The Complaints
1. I have received a complaint against the
Rt Hon William Hague, Member for Richmond (Yorkshire), from Ms
Kathy Lewis of Haynes, Bedfordshire. In her letter, dated 8 February
2001 (Annex A), Ms Lewis stated that since January 1999 Mr Hague's
Register entry had included:
"Any fees received as a result of speaking
engagements will be paid into The William Hague Charitable Trust.
Donations from this Trust will be distributed by an independent
board of trustees to charitable organisations within my constituency".
2. Ms Lewis's complaint was that the William
Hague Charitable Trust "does not exist and never has existed
and that Mr Hague's entry is therefore both inaccurate and misleading".
Ms Lewis added: "If fees have not been paid into the William
Hague Charitable Trust then where have they gone?". Ms Lewis
also stated that if I required further formation on the matter
I should approach Mr Jack Cheshire or Mr Mark Thomas of Vera Productions
Ltd.[6]
3. I wrote to Ms Lewis on 9 February and
again on 14 February 2001 asking her to let me have the evidence
she had indicated was held by Mr Cheshire or Mr Thomas.
4. Mr Cheshire wrote to me at Ms Lewis's
request on 15 February 2001. With his letter (Annex B), Mr Cheshire
enclosed his evidence "that the William Hague Charitable
Trust [did] not exist". The evidence consisted of the following
documents[7]:
— Statement by the Charities Commission
regarding the charitable status of The William Hague Charitable
Trust. (This was confirmed to me in a letter dated 14 February
2001 from the Director of Operations at the Charity Commission
(Annex C).)
— Transcripts of conversations on 7 February
2001 between Mr Mark Thomas of Vera Productions Ltd and Ms Charlotte
Kenyon, Conservative Party Press Office, and between Mr Thomas
and Ms Claire Gibson, Mr Hague's Personal Secretary in Richmond,
Yorkshire
— Copy of a letter sent by Mr Thomas to
Mr Hague, dated 8 February 2001
— Statement issued by the Conservative
Party to Vera Productions Ltd on 9 February 2001
— Transcript of a telephone call between
Mr Thomas and Mr Andrew Scadding, Conservative Central Office,
on 9 February 2001.
5. Mr Cheshire's letter concluded:
"We would be very grateful if you could
fully investigate not only the clearly misleading and inaccurate
entry in the Register, but, more importantly, precisely what fees
Mr Hague has received, from whom, and to whom they have been distributed.
This is a matter of the utmost public interest and I look forward
to hearing from you soon."
6. I also received a complaint from Mr Fraser
Kemp, Member for Houghton and Washington East. In his letter,
dated 13 February 2001 (Annex D), Mr Kemp asked: "Why did
William Hague mislead the Registrar by declaring a charitable
trust that had not yet been set up?". Mr Kemp also listed
a number of other questions which, he believed, ought to be put
to Mr Hague, including a request for confirmation that all of
the fees received by Mr Hague from speaking engagements had in
fact been donated to charity.
Background to the complaints
7. On 7 February 2001, shortly before the
complaints were lodged, Mr Hague had written to the Registrar,
following a telephone conversation between the Registrar and Mr
Hague's Private Secretary, Lord Coe, in which the latter sought
advice about the best way to correct what Lord Coe described as
an inaccuracy which had come to light in Mr Hague's Register entry.
8. In his letter to the Registrar (Annex
E), Mr Hague confirmed that he wished to remove the reference
to the William Hague Charitable Trust from his Register entry.
He added:
"On the advice of your predecessor, I requested
its inclusion whilst arrangements were still being made for its
establishment. Over time, however, it became clear that a charitable
trust intended to distribute my occasional fees to good causes
in my constituency would prove too complicated to manage for the
small sums involved. I have therefore reverted to my original
practice of requesting any fees to be paid direct to charities
and good causes of my choice.
I am sorry that this change in circumstance was not
registered with you earlier. But I should be grateful if you would
amend my entry as soon as possible."
9. The change requested by Mr Hague was
included in the annual printed edition of the Register as at 31
January 2001, which was published on 26 February 2001. The revised
wording, agreed with Mr Hague's office, read:
"Any fees received as a result of speaking
or other engagements will be donated to charities and good causes
of my choice".
10. The original Register entry referring to
the William Hague Charitable Trust first appeared in the printed
edition of the Register as at 31 January 1999, following a letter
from Mr Hague to the Registrar dated 21 January 1999 requesting
the addition. It was carried forward to the next printed edition,
dated 31 January 2000, a draft of the relevant portion of which
was sent to Mr Hague for checking during December 1999. The same
entry also appeared in seven separate updated print-outs which
were sent to Mr Hague for verification in relation to other changes
or additions made by him to his entry during the course of 1999
and 2000.
Mr Hague's response to the complaints
11. I wrote to Mr Hague on 9 February 2001 (Annex
F), asking him to provide me with information about the circumstances
surrounding the decision to establish, and subsequently not to
proceed with, the Trust, as well as details of his speaking engagements
since January 1999 and the way in which the relevant fees had
been handled.
12. On 12 February 2001, Mr Hague's Private Secretary,
Lord Coe, came to see me to explain the background to the Trust.
He provided me with a list of articles and speeches for which
Mr Hague had received fees, in respect of which some cheques had
been made payable to the Trust and others direct to individual
charities. I told Lord Coe that I would need confirmation in writing
from the providers that, in the case of the six payments made
to the Trust, none of the cheques had been cashed. Lord Coe assured
me that this information would be provided as part of Mr Hague's
formal response to the complaints.
13. On 13 February 2001, Lord Coe wrote to me
on Mr Hague's behalf (Annex G), stating that the decision not
to proceed with the establishment of the Trust had been taken
around July 2000 as it was "proving too complicated for the
sums involved". Lord Coe said that since then Mr Hague had
reverted to his original practice of requesting any fees earned
from speaking engagements or writing articles to be paid to charities
and good causes of his choice. Lord Coe concluded:
14. Attached to Lord Coe's letter were the following
details of Mr Hague's fees for speaking and other media engagements:
— a list of seven engagements where
the fee cheques had been made payable to the Trust, together with
confirmation from the relevant paying organisation that the cheque
had not been cashed
— a list of three further engagements,
all carried out since the beginning of November 2000, where the
fees were paid directly to a specified charity.
15. On 14 February 2001, I wrote to Lord Coe
(Annex H), informing him of my view that there remained issues
relating to Mr Hague's Register entry which I needed to investigate
further, in particular the precise circumstances surrounding the
decisions to set up the Trust and subsequently to abandon the
proposal. For convenience I set out in my letter the points on
which I required detailed information from Mr Hague in order to
be able to reach a conclusion on the complaints. In addition to
requesting answers to my specific questions I asked Lord Coe to
provide me with any relevant material in the form of correspondence,
file notes etc which would enable me to form a complete picture
of the way in which matters concerning the Trust had been handled.
16. On 21 February 2001 Lord Coe wrote to me
again on Mr Hague's behalf (Annex I) in response to some of the
points raised in my letter to Lord Coe of 14 February. The main
points of this letter were as follows:
— the idea of creating a charitable
trust to receive fees earned by Mr Hague from speaking engagements
had come from Lord Coe;
— no formal steps had been taken to establish
the Trust;
— around the end of 1998, Mr Hague's constituency
secretary, Ms Claire Gibson, undertook to seek advice about establishing
a Trust from legal and accountancy professionals who agreed to
provide their services on a voluntary basis;
— on the basis of the initial professional
advice as to the feasibility of establishing the Trust it was
thought appropriate to choose a name for it and, "having
sought advice from the Registrar", to amend Mr Hague's Register
entry accordingly;
— in the event, the advice and assistance
which had been offered did not materialise and "other work
pressures, and some rather serious family pressures caused Ms
Gibson to perhaps not pursue the establishment of the Trust as
vigorously as she might";
— the sums of money received by Mr Hague
for engagements between January 1999 and July 2000 "were
minimal";
— Mr Hague did not seek, and had never
sought, payment for any speech, article or appearance; any moneys
received were either unsolicited donations by host organisations
or "automatic payments" from the publications involved;
— in around July 2000 it was decided—jointly
by Ms Gibson and Mr Hague—to discontinue attempts to establish
the Trust;
— at that time, Mr Hague's office at Westminster
was informed by Ms Gibson of "the difficulties experienced
in establishing the Trust" and it was "suggested that
Mr Hague's entry in the Register [referring to the Trust] be amended";
— however, it was decided to delay that
action "because Ms Gibson remained hopeful that the trust
could be established, if only she could receive the professional
advice required"; and "in the spirit of over-registering
information" it was thought best "to leave matters as
they stood";
— "with hindsight, Mr Hague's entry
should have been amended at that time".
17. Lord Coe said that there was no other documentation
relevant to my investigation as he had sent me "all the papers
on our files" with his letter of 13 February. He also indicated
that he would contact me again when he had had a chance to "explore
the details of the issue further" when he visited Mr Hague's
constituency within the next ten days.
18. Lord Coe concluded:
"The issue you wish to investigate relating
to Mr Hague is a result of mis-communication between Mr Hague's
two offices and I repeat here that no wrong-doing has occurred
by Mr Hague or any of his staff".
19. Following his visit to Mr Hagues's constituency,
Lord Coe wrote to me again on 9 March 2001 (Annex J). The main
points of Lord Coe's further letter were:
— that the inquiries he had made in
Richmond had confirmed his earlier account
— that the professional advice about the
establishment of the Trust had been sought informally and had
not been recorded in writing
— that the lack of urgency with which
the idea of the Trust had been pursued by Mr Hagues's personal
staff in the constituency had led those from whom advice had been
sought to conclude that implementing the proposal was not a priority
— that the confusion over Mr Hagues's
Register entry was the result of "miscommunication and misunderstanding"
between Mr Hagues's offices in Westminster and the constituency.
20. Lord Coe added two further points:
— that "none of the monies that
were donated for charitable purposes were in excess of the amount
[Members are advised] to consider registering following speaking
engagements or media work" and that "Mr Hagues's desire
to be open about how any monies received for speaking engagements
would be redirected was in fact well beyond what is required by
Parliament"
— that, having learned that none of the
cheques made payable to the Trust were ever cashed, Mr Hague had
decided "to make personal donations to charities and good
causes in his constituency totalling £1,750 (the total amount
of cheques made payable to the... Trust)".
Analysis
21. Since it is not disputed by Mr Hague that
the William Hague Charitable Trust was never set up, it has not
been necessary for me to comment on the evidence concerning the
Trust provided to me by Mr Cheshire of Vera Productions Ltd and
the Charity Commission.
22. From my analysis of the information supplied
by Mr Hague, the sequence of events relating to the non-establishment
of the Trust appears to be as follows.
23. Mr Hague says that, shortly after the idea
of creating a charitable trust to receive and distribute his earnings
from speeches was first mooted in late 1998, he sought advice
from the then Registrar as to whether the arrangement should be
registered. There is no file record of the exchanges between the
Registrar and Mr Hague's office, so that it is not possible to
be certain of the details of the proposal as it then stood and,
in particular, how imminent its implementation was thought to
be. Given, however, that the first of the fee cheques made payable
to the William Hague Charitable Trust was dated 20 January 1999,
it is understandable that the Registrar should have thought it
right to advise Mr Hague to make an appropriate addition to his
Register entry. Mr Hague formally requested that the change be
made in a letter to the Registrar dated 21 January 1999. The revised
entry duly appeared in the annual printed Register as at 31 January
1999.
24. It may be that the proposal to set up a trust
had not been fully thought through before the Registrar was approached
for advice and the request was made by Mr Hague for the addition
of the Register entry referring to the Trust. But what is clear
is that the practical difficulties proved to be unexpectedly large
and, ultimately, insuperable. This appears to have resulted from
a combination of the failure of the promised professional assistance
to materialise and the inability of Mr Hague's constituency office,
because of pressure of work and other factors, to devote sufficient
time to drive the project forward.
25. By July 2000, according to Lord Coe, it was
evident that no progress was likely to be made with the scheme
and a decision was taken jointly by Mr Hague and his constituency
secretary, Ms Claire Gibson, not to proceed further. But no action
was taken to correct Mr Hague's register entry because, in an
unexplained change of heart, Ms Gibson subsequently indicated
that she was still hopeful of obtaining the necessary professional
assistance to establish the trust. It is not clear why this confidence
on Ms Gibson's part was accepted so soon after the decision had
been taken to abandon the proposal, and especially in view of
the lack of progress hitherto.
26. In the event, there were no further developments
in relation to the trust and Mr Hague's Register Entry was eventually
corrected in February 2001. However, it appears that the decision
to remove the reference to the trust was prompted by an approach
to Mr Hague's office by Vera Productions in preparation for a
Channel 4 television programme which was to include an item about
Mr Hague's Register entry.[8]
27. In consequence of the failure to take appropriate
corrective action as soon as it became clear that the trust's
establishment could not reasonably be regarded as imminent, Mr
Hague's Register entry was allowed to continue in a materially
inaccurate form for a considerable period. This oversight cannot
be excused by reference to a "spirit of over-registering"—as
Lord Coe put it—if that is taken to mean including in the
Register more information than is strictly required by the rules
of the House. Such a wise precautionary approach is not comparable
with permitting the continuation of a potentially misleading reference
to a non-existent arrangement for handling fees from speaking
engagements.
28. However, it should be emphasised that there
is no evidence of any intention on Mr Hague's part deliberately
to mislead the House and the public through his Register entry.
Moreover, it is clear from the documentary evidence provided to
me by Lord Coe that none of the cheques made out to the William
Hague Charitable Trust was cashed and that all the subsequent
cheques made out to individual charities reached their intended
recipients. In fairness to Mr Hague it should also be acknowledged
that, as a party leader, in addition to his duties as a Member,
he runs a busy office and inevitably has to rely to a large extent
on his personal staff both at Westminster and in his constituency.
29. Nevertheless, it remains a fundamental principle
underlying the rules relating to registration that each Member
is responsible for the accuracy of his Register entry. Nor was
this a single oversight on Mr Hague's part since, during the period
following the inclusion of the reference to the Trust, he was
given eight separate opportunities to check his entry (in December
1999 in preparation for publication of the 2000 printed edition
of the Register and through seven updated print-outs following
other changes in his registrable interests). It is important that
the process whereby my office sends draft Register entries to
Members for verification is not seen as a mere formality. Its
purpose is to ensure that any errors or omissions are corrected
at the earliest possible opportunity so that other Members, and
the public, are provided with accurate information.
30. When I had drafted my memorandum, but prior
to coming to any conclusions, I sent a copy to Mr Hague so that
he could provide me with corrections of fact and any other comments
he might wish to make. Mr Hague replied on 14 March 2001 (Annex
K) attaching a letter from Lord Coe (Annex L). I have considered
these letters and have made some corrections of fact, together
with some other amendments to my draft, in the light of them.
31. In his letter commenting on my memorandum
in draft, Lord Coe put it to me that it was unfair to describe
Mr Hague as having failed to take eight separate opportunities
to correct his Register entry, since, Lord Coe argued, only four
revised print-outs had been sent to Mr Hague after July 2000,
the date when a decision was finally taken to abandon attempts
to establish the Trust.
32. I cannot accept this argument. Mr Hague's
entry was inaccurate from the moment it became clear, shortly
after the first reference to the Trust appeared in the January
1999 Register, that the establishment of the Trust could not reasonably
be regarded as imminent. Each of the proofs sent to Mr Hague between
January 1999 and July 2000 (as well as the subsequent ones) ought
to have acted as a reminder to check on progress with setting
up the Trust and, in case of doubt, to seek advice from the Registrar.
33. It is true, as Lord Coe points out, that
Mr Hague twice made handwritten notes on copies of his Register
entry, once in July 2000 and again in September of that year,
indicating that he wished the reference to the Trust to be removed.
Unfortunately, Mr Hague's staff failed to act on this instruction.
Moreover, the practice of Mr Hague's office had been only to consult
Mr Hague on the wording of requests for additions to his entry,
leaving the checking of proofs sent to Mr Hague by my office to
be dealt with by a member of staff. This meant that Mr Hague personally
never saw any of the proofs sent to him after September 2000 and
was thus unaware that his instructions had not been carried out.
34. It remains the case, however, that Mr Hague
knew that his entry was no longer accurate and it was his responsibility
to ensure that an appropriate correction was made. It is undesirable
for Members to subcontract to staff the checking of proofs of
their Register entry. Lord Coe has told me that this practice
will no longer be followed in Mr Hague's office.
Conclusions
35. Although the reference to the William Hague
Charitable Trust was originally included in good faith, Mr Hague's
Register entry ceased to be accurate as soon as it began to become
clear that the process of establishing the trust had run into
serious difficulty and that the proposal was unlikely to be implemented
in the near future—if at all. This was increasingly the
case from early 1999 onwards until, in July 2000, Mr Hague reached
the conclusion that the proposal was a non-starter.
36. Mr Hague twice asked his staff to remove
the reference to the Trust from his entry, once in late July 2000
and again in September of that year, but he did not follow through
this instruction to make sure that it had been carried out. This
was partly due to defective procedures in his office, whereby
Mr Hague did not personally see all Register proofs sent to his
office for checking. Despite the extenuating circumstances to
which I have referred, it was Mr Hague's personal responsibility
to ensure that his entry was accurate.
37. Mr Hague failed to respond correctly on eight
separate occasions when required to check his entry, with the
result that it continued in a materially inaccurate form for a
considerable period—at least six months and arguably longer.
38. There is, however, no evidence that Mr Hague
intended his Register entry to be misleading nor that there was
any irregularity or impropriety in the use to which his fees for
speaking engagements were put.
Complaint upheld
39. Mr Hague has expressed his regret for not
amending his Register entry promptly and Lord Coe has emphasised
that this was due to an oversight following "miscommunication
and misunderstanding between his two offices". Mr Hague has
also taken steps voluntarily to make donations to charities in
his constituency, amounting in total to the sums originally intended
to be paid to the Trust. Lord Coe has indicated that Mr Hague's
office procedures will be tightened up to ensure that Mr Hague
personally sees all Register proofs sent to him for checking.
15 March 2001
Elizabeth Filkin
6 Makers of the Channel 4 television programme The
Mark Thomas Product. Back
7 Not
printed. Back
8 See
paragraph 2 and Annex B. Back
| 
