Examination of Witness (Questions 180-199)
17 JULY 2003
MR ANDREW
GILLIGAN
Q180 Chairman: Mr Gilligan, you are
back before the Committee and we understand that you have asked
to have Mr Mark Damazer with you here again, as you had on the
last occasion. That is correct?
Mr Gilligan: Yes.
Q181 Chairman: You know the background,
that although the Committee reported to the House on 7 July there
was a significant development after that which was not and could
not be anticipated, namely, that an official in the Ministry of
Defence thought that he might well have been the source and made
a statement to the Ministry of Defence, and you know what happened
after that. Correct?
Mr Gilligan: Yes.
Q182 Chairman: It is only fair that
you be informed of the seriousness of the current situation and
of the powers available to a Select Committee of the House. You
have refused to answer a question put by me in writing on behalf
of the Committee in your last letter. That is why essentially
you are here today. You will be aware that a witness appearing
before a committee of Parliament is bound to answer all questions
which the committee sees fit to put to him or to her and that
no witness may excuse himself or herself because of the adherence
to a professional code, or indeed on any other ground. Therefore,
the committee has the power, if it sees fit, to make a report
to the House of Commons of the circumstances of a refusal to answer
a question put by it and the powers of the House in dealing with
such a matter are considerable. I thought it only fair to make
this point to you before we start, before the questioning begins.
Can you at the outset confirm that you have fully understood the
meaning and significance of what I have said?
Mr Gilligan: Yes indeed, Mr Chairman.
Q183 Chairman: Turning to the questioning,—
Mr Gilligan: May I make an opening
statement, rather a short one, with your permission, Mr Chairman?
Q184 Chairman: Does it relate to
your willingness or unwillingness to answer questions?
Mr Gilligan: Yes, it does.
Q185 Chairman: Is that not included
in the letter which you wrote to us?
Mr Gilligan: It relates to some
of the points I dealt with in the letter.
Q186 Chairman: So it does add to
that letter?
Mr Gilligan: Yes, it does.
Q187 Chairman: You say it is a short
statement?
Mr Gilligan: Yes. It is about
a paragraph long.
Mr Pope: I think we should hear it.
Q188 Chairman: Proceed please.
Mr Gilligan: I am happy to appear
before the Committee and I postponed a work trip in order to do
so. I want to help the Committee as much as I can but I ask the
Committee to accept that there are areas about sourcing where
I will be able to add nothing to my previous evidence. Before
I gave that evidence to you I carefully considered how much I
could tell you about my source. I wanted to tell you as much as
I possibly could and yet avoid giving any information which might
betray the identity of the source with potentially serious consequences
for him. If you look through my evidence you will see that I actually
did tell you a fair amount, enough to allow you to make the judgment
you did. What I told you on June 19, with respect, really does
represent the outer limit of what I am able to say about my principal
source. As I told the Chairman and, as I regret, in advance the
Committee, I shall not be able to add anything more to that evidence.
Chairman: We hear you.
Q189 Ms Stuart: Mr Gilligan, I did
not have the benefit of being here at the last session you gave
evidence and I hope you will forgive me if I ask a more general
question to allow me to understand more the process by which you
put stories together and you source them. It is my understanding
that it is quite acceptable for some Sunday newspapers to run
more speculative stories sourced just by one, whereas when you
talk about television or radio the standards are more stringent.
There is a presumption that there are several sources. There is
also a presumption that if accusations against government departments
are made this is checked. Is that also your understanding of the
way stories are put together?
Mr Gilligan: It is my understanding
that the BBC does operate more rigorous standards of journalism
than a Sunday tabloid and our journalism fell within those standards.
Q190 Ms Stuart: And within that you
would always check back with departments information and that
kind of thing?
Mr Gilligan: We do not always
do that but we had a position with this particular story where
I did not speak directly to Downing Street about it, but that
fact has been in the public domain for some time. We did, however,
put the issue to the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence
was clearly aware of the nature of the story and Adam Ingram,
the Defence Minister, who we invited on the programme the next
morning to talk about it and one other story, was clearly well
briefed on it because he was able to confirm one of the charges
made by my source, that the 45-minute point had come from a single
uncorroborated informant. We were also careful to broadcast Downing
Street's response to the story. We, in fact, gave, if you like,
the defenders of the Government more time on this than we gave,
if you like, the attackers, namely, my source.
Q191 Ms Stuart: If you were to look
back at the last 12 months and the reporting in relation to you
as the Defence Correspondent and the Today programme, would
there be occasions when with hindsight you would now say that
actually you were wrong?
Mr Gilligan: I cannot think of
any. Again, this is not a question I prepared for by looking back
through all the stories I have ever done. Nobody in any form of
life, I think, would ever say that they were entirely infallible.
I made a bad mistake on one story about three years ago which
we did correct on air. The idea that we do not correct stories
is wrong. When we make mistakes we correct them.
Q192 Ms Stuart: May I just talk about
one particular story which you may recall? It was reported on
the Today programme on Wednesday, 24 February, and it referred
to RAF planes in Cyprus. You came on to the programme and said
that "But with an air war now almost certain the BBC News
has learned that the RAF has in fact managed to get only six fast
jets from Britain to the region". Do you remember the broadcast?
Mr Gilligan: I do recall that,
although not the precise detail.
Q193 Ms Stuart: And there was a clear
statement then from the MoD saying that "For operational
reasons they would not give any figures and that anybody who was
actually within sight of Cyprus would know that the planes were
in double figures".
Mr Gilligan: I was not discussing
Cyprus. I was discussing the region. Cyprus is not part of the
region. I do know a bit about the history of this story and I
can take you through it. The figures came to me from a press officer
at the Ministry of Defence, Elaine Macleod. Maybe she should not
have said them but she did. The Ministry of Defence then later
issued a statement saying the figures were wrong. Immediately
on receipt of that statement I had a message put out on the BBC's
internal mail system saying, "The Ministry of Defence has
said that these are wrong. We need to correct it". That went
out on a thing called ENPS, which is our internal news system
that we work on, and it appeared on the top line of everybody's
screen, so we corrected that story, we accepted the information
that Elaine had given me was wrong. We corrected that story within
half an hour of accepting that, and that was within three hours
of the original story being broadcast, so we do correct mistakes.
Q194 Ms Stuart: But it is not my
understanding that the MoD ever accepted that they gave you those
figures.
Mr Gilligan: I think it is one
of those spats between who said what to whom that sometimes tend
to arise, and indeed have arisen in this case.
Q195 Ms Stuart: Okay. Let us look
at another occasion of where a spat arises between you. Let us
take it a little bit further back to last November and it was
about port security in Dover. You were reported to have said on
the Today programme, "Britain's own security information
service called Transec downplayed that in a secret notice to the
ports including Dover on Friday but at the same time there was
a security step-up to a level known as heightened emergency which,
although not the highest possible level, is actually the highest
it has ever been". That story was subsequently denied and
it was made clear that Transec simply reiterated an existing security
alert and was simply re-stating it. Is that another incidence
of where there is a rather interesting interpretation of the facts?
Mr Gilligan: No. That story was
correct. The fact that the Government denies the story does not
necessarily mean it is wrong. However, if you had given me notice
about these stories I would have been able to produce chapter
and verse as to why we believe these are correct. If you would
like I can write you a memo afterwards and lay out who I spoke
to on that story, what they said. I can give you the exact Transec
bulletin which was leaked to me and I can give you an account
of what the Government spokesman actually said afterwards which
did not really constitute a denial, I have to say. Without such
details immediately to hand I really cannot get into detailed
discussions; I am sorry.
Q196 Ms Stuart: Just one final observation.
When you were reported by James Naughtie on the day in September
that the leaked document was published, James Naughtie said, "Our
defence man, Andrew Gilligan, has been reading it for the last
hour or so". It goes on to say, "Anything new?".
Andrew Gilligan says, "No. My feeling is that it fleshes
out what we already know to some extent and that there is some
new interesting sort of spicy angles but it does not contain any
killer fact that takes us any further". Then James Naughtie
says, "Well, if you were to choose a paragraph as the most
dramatic that you have read this morning, what is it?", and
you are reported as saying, "Well, let's be honest. It is
not that kind of document. It is actually rather sensibly cautious
and measured in tone on the whole. There are, as I say, a couple
of sexy lines designed to make headlines for the tabloids, like
the fact that he could deploy within 45 minutes if the weapons
were ready and he could reach the British base in Cyprus, both
of which we actually knew." Finally, you finished by saying,
"The document today is based in large part on the work of
the Joint Intelligence Committee". Would you still stand
by those things?
Mr Gilligan: Yes, of course. It
does not conflict with anything I have said at all. I mentioned
the 45-minute point specifically in the context of it being provided
as a tabloid headline, which indeed it was.
Q197 Chairman: which you already
knew.
Mr Gilligan: No, I did not, actually.
It was the headline in the Evening Standard the next day.
It was the headline in The Sun. "45 Minutes from Doom",
was the headline in The Sun. The two principal new lines
in the document, which I did mention as new lines in my report,
were the uranium from Africa claim and the 45-minute claim, and
I did mention those as new lines, I am afraid, as you yourself
said.
Q198 Ms Stuart: The Chairman has
briefly mentioned whether you knew the 45-minute claim. It actually
reads here,". . . the fact that he could deploy within 45
minutes", and then it goes to say, "something which
we actually knew".
Mr Gilligan: No. I think that
referred to the reach of the weapons to Cyprus. That was what
I knew already. It is very important not to take these quotes
out of context, as I have learned in the last three weeks.
Q199 Ms Stuart: This is a whole sentence
which says that it is designed to make headlines. Then he goes
on,". . . but he can deploy within 45 minutes if the weapons
were ready", and that he could reach the British bases on
Cyprus, "both of which we actually knew", so it is both.
Mr Gilligan: I do not recognise
that, I am afraid. I am sorry.
Chairman: Can I ask Ms Stuart, is that
an exact transcript of what Mr Gilligan said at the time?
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