Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 16 JANUARY 2002
SIR RICHARD
MOTTRAM KCB, SIR
MICHAEL PEAT
KCVO AND MR
IAN MCEWEN
Chairman
1. Order, order. Welcome to the Committee of
Public Accounts of the House of Commons. Today we are discussing
royal travel by air and rail and I welcome Sir Richard Mottram.
Perhaps you could introduce your colleagues.
(Sir Richard Mottram) Perhaps I should say that I
am the Permanent Secretary for the Department for Transport, Local
Government and the Regions. Sir Michael Peat is the Keeper of
the Privy Purse and Ian McEwen is the Command Secretary of Strike
Command in the Ministry of Defence.
2. Welcome all of you. May I start my questioning
with Sir Michael? You have managed to achieve significant savings.
Do you expect to maintain this trend by shifting between different
types of transport?
(Sir Michael Peat) No, we are probably getting quite
close to an irreducible minimum. When the NAO did their report,
they said that they expected us to continue to increase at between
5 and 2 per cent a year. We shall do rather better than that and
indeed costs have come down since they did their report, but we
are getting close to the bottom. There is never room for complacency
and we shall always be looking for additional savings, but we
shall soon get to minus territory if we carry on at the rate we
have done in the last four years.
3. May I ask a couple of questions about an
article which appeared in the Sunday Telegraph which you
might have seen?
(Sir Michael Peat) If it was last weekend, yes I did.
4. Can you just confirm that the principal purpose
of 32 Squadron is military and that therefore it is appropriate
to base charges for other users, including the Royal Household,
on variable costs?
(Sir Michael Peat) Yes. For example, in the year 2000-01
we used 8 per cent of 32 Squadron flying hours, so clearly the
principal purpose of the Squadron is not to look after the Royal
Family; it is for other purposes.
5. Was this article correct in terms of the
Prime Minister being subsidised by the Queen?
(Sir Michael Peat) No, I would not say that was correct
in the article. While the NAO have said that the Royal Household
and the grant-in-aid were charged too much money during 2000-01,
it is only really recirculating public money in any event. We
are provided the money by means of the grant-in-aid and then we
pay a certain proportion of it back to the Ministry of Defence
for use of 32 Squadron. The point is not that the Royal Household
were overcharged, it is more of a presentational point in that,
because of the higher rates previously, it made royal travel seem
more expensive than it actually was.
6. Will the new variable cost rate also apply
to private journeys and why should it?
(Sir Michael Peat) In paragraph 3.13 of their report,
the National Audit Office have recommended that it should apply
to private journeys, so I assume that that is the rate the Ministry
of Defence will charge us for private journeys and indeed it is
the rate they are charging us at the moment.
7. I think that answer is yes, the variable
cost rate will apply to private journeys.
(Sir Michael Peat) Yes.
8. Now that we are charging royal travel at
this variable cost, has there been any change in the use of 32
Squadron?
(Sir Michael Peat) Yes, there has been a significant
change. In the year 2000-01 we used 291 hours of 32 Squadron.
We were planning to reduce to 105 hours of 32 Squadron in the
current financial year, because it was a bit expensive for us.
As a result of the lower prices, we shall probably use round about
380 hours of 32 Squadron flying time this year.
9. May I ask a question about the royal train?
It is only used about 20 times a year. Savings have been made
but the cost per mile of rail travel is still twice that of air.
Can you justify this cost and can you justify retaining the royal
train?
(Sir Michael Peat) As you kindly said, we have reduced
the cost of the royal train from round about £1.9 million
a year to round about £600,000 a year. Having said that,
as you have also correctly suggested, it is still expensive and
it is an expensive way to travel. It is, however, a way of travelling
which has a number of advantages. It enables members of the Royal
Family to travel while they are sleeping and during meal times.
It provides excellent facilities for changing and for meetings
and briefings prior to engagements. It also means that the member
of the Royal Family concerned can arrive right in the middle of
the town to be visited, at the correct time, with certainty. Particularly
during the spring and autumn, helicopters, which are usually the
alternative, are prone to disruption by fog, in particular, and
it does worry members of the Royal Family that people put a huge
amount of time and effort preparing for a visit and everyone is
looking forward to it and if they do not arrive, or they are late,
clearly that is a matter of some concern. So the train does have
a lot of advantages. On the other hand, you are absolutely right
in saying that it is expensive. The reason it is expensive is
a circular thing really. Because it is expensive members of the
Royal Family are reluctant to use it, because they are reluctant
to use it and it only gets used a few times a year, it means it
gets more expensive.
10. That is not a justification for keeping
it.
(Sir Michael Peat) No; absolutely. It is going to
be used a lot during this year, the Queen's Golden Jubilee year,
as the Queen undertakes her tours round the country. As most people
know, she is going to visit most parts of the country and she
will spend a large number of nights on the train, two or three
at a time, using it effectively as her travelling base. The train
is very much justified in the current year.
11. So after the Jubilee year, are you hinting
that you will look at it again?
(Sir Michael Peat) We need to look at it again. We
have done well, we have reduced it substantially. There is no
room for complacency—it is expensive and we want to consider
all possibilities to try to get the unit cost of the train down
further. If you ask me how we are going to do it, I am afraid
I cannot say at the moment. We really are going to think about
it. The experience of the Jubilee and the exposure the train will
get during this Jubilee year will help us in those considerations.
12. You will do a serious study on the future
of the royal train once the Jubilee year is over.
(Sir Michael Peat) Yes, that is the intention.
13. Sir Richard, how much would you earn by
selling off the rest of the royal train?
(Sir Richard Mottram) Very little. We earned about
£200,000 from selling off a few of the coaches and the coaches
are actually old stock and have a very limited value. I would
guess we are talking about less than £1 million; that is
probably an over-estimate.
14. I am told it is not a grand luxury Czar's
train, but more 1960s laminate. Is that right?
(Sir Richard Mottram) I think the answer to that is
yes.
(Sir Michael Peat) Exactly. It is Formica and aluminium
from First Class 1960-70. We can all remember it.
15. May I ask about the visit of the Earl and
Countess of Wessex to Bahrain and Qatar? There was some controversy
surrounding that because it was alleged that they were using royal
travel to further business interests. Can you tell us a bit about
what changes you have made following that visit?
(Sir Michael Peat) None at all really. Those were
stories and speculation in the newspapers which as far as I am
aware had no basis whatsoever. The Earl and Countess of Wessex
went there at the request of the Foreign Office; the visit, as
all those visits are, was requested by and approved by the Royal
Visits Committee. Some stories appeared in the newspaper but I
do not think there is any justification or basis for them whatsoever.
16. I have been advised—maybe the advice
was wrong—that the Palace promised to review its arrangements
where public and private business were combined.
(Sir Michael Peat) Yes, we did do that and we have
done that. That was nothing to do with the Earl of Wessex's visit
to Bahrain; that really came out of the story in the News of
the World about someone dressing up as a sheikh, if you recall
that?
17. I do remember that very well. Do you want
to tell us a tiny bit more about that?
(Sir Michael Peat) About the sheikh?
18. No, not about the sheikh; we have heard
enough about the sheikh. In particular may I direct the questioning
a bit further. Are private secretaries required to confirm in
every case both in advance and retrospect, whether private business
or social travel is planned or has occurred?
(Sir Michael Peat) Yes; absolutely. As you would expect,
our internal rules within the Household are absolutely clear that
not only should there not be any conflict of interest, but there
should not be any reasonable case for anyone to believe that there
is any conflict of interest in respect of any official visit or
indeed any official engagement. If that might be the case, the
guidelines are absolutely clear that the member of the Royal Family
should not undertake the visit or the engagement.
19. If we look at Appendix 2 of the report,
we see that the royal party can sometimes be very large. We have
38 people on page 12, 48 people in the first case on page 31.
I understand some of these will be for state visits but can you
tell us a bit about the controls you have within the Household
to ensure that the party sizes are reasonable? Can you tell us
why you really need 48 people?
(Sir Michael Peat) The only time you have a visit
on which that number of people go is when the Queen is undertaking
an official state visit overseas and there are generally two of
them a year and then Her Majesty is accompanied by large numbers
of people: private secretaries, press secretaries, she has a doctor,
she has to have personal domestic staff to look after her. On
these visits she also entertains at what we call the return banquet
and therefore there are catering arrangements which have to be
dealt with too when the Queen entertains her host, the head of
state who has asked her there. It is only on those visits when
large numbers go. For all the other visits numbers are relatively
small. Sometimes numbers are swelled by journalists, for example,
but they are re-charged, so they are not a cost to the grant-in-aid.
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