Examination of Witnesses (Questions 127
- 139)
MONDAY 20 DECEMBER 2004
PROFESSOR RICHARD
A FLAVELL AND
SIR PAUL
NURSE
Q127 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank
you for joining us. The first question I want to ask you is about
the words "without coercion" which were deleted from
the statement that Professor Blakemore asked the Task Force to
sign. Did you do that? Did you manipulate or seduce or whatever
the words "without coercion" out of there? Why did you
do that? Did you suggest anything else in that statement that
might be changed, please? Paul?
Sir Paul Nurse:
This was a statement that was originally circulated a couple of
months ago, I think around August, I cannot remember the dates.
At the time I did not think it would be useful to sign such a
statement. I suppose I felt that it was potentially provocative.
Putting in words like "without coercion" seemed to me
to be a statement that would be provocative, as if it was countering
issues that were suggesting that there was coercion and I did
not think that was very useful. That was what I thought in August.
When it came back again a couple of weeks ago I read it very carefully
because I think on the whole the Task Force operated reasonably
well in extremely difficult circumstances, but when it came to
this question of coercion again it seemed to me too pointed and
I really wanted to try and get the Mill Hill members of the Task
Force on board so that we had a united front over the process.
I felt that putting those words in might be difficult for two
reasons. One is that there was a lot of persuasion, there was
lobbying maybe more than is usual for such meetings, certainly
more than what I am used to. There is a fine line between strong
persuasion and coercion. I felt it was more like strong persuasion.
Others, particularly if you are an employee, might have thought
otherwise. The second reason I had some concerns about it was
that although I did not feel I had been subject to any coercion,
I was aware of e-mails that were around that I think you have
discussed already. I was not aware of the telephone conversation
between Robin and Colin until I read about it. I was aware there
were thoughts that some of the persuasion was very strong and
so I felt unable to say with complete confidence what had happened
elsewhere, where I had not been, although in the meetings and
conversations I had I would put it as strong persuasion rather
than coercion. I do not know if that deals with the question for
you.
Q128 Chairman: Was there anything
else that was added with your recommendation or taken out by your
recommendation, Paul, besides that?
Sir Paul Nurse: I talked about
it with Dick Flavell who actually sent the e-mail back. He would
probably be the better person to ask the question to. We removed
"without coercion" and we took out another sentence
a little further down which had been discussed more after the
Task Force had been completed. I think it might be best to ask
Dick about that because he was the one who removed the sentence.
Q129 Chairman: Dick, what was it
that you wanted to have removed besides the coercion phrase? Was
there something else? Why do you think other people were not concerned
about it, only you pair?
Professor Flavell: I do not have
the document in front of me now but I can certainly get that.
There was a sentence which described a process. The process, as
Paul just said, was something that happened afterwards and for
that reason, because of the wording of the document, we both thought
it was not appropriate for it to be in there. I would say there
is nothing sinister behind that. It was just that we felt, independently
and after we discussed it, that it was not a very good match for
the document. Does that answer your question sufficiently? I can
try and find that e-mail.
Q130 Chairman: We have the documentation
that says it was about Mill Hill being a baseline. Was that the
phraseology that you wanted to remove? Would you just confirm
that for the record, please?
Professor Flavell: That is correct.
Thank you very much. The reason was that that was brought in later
as part of the process and by the Council.
Q131 Mr Key: Sir Paul, we were told
in evidence from Dr Lovell-Badge that he received more than one
phone call from Professor Blakemore late at night and at weekends
and that he believed that other members of the Task Force had
had this sort of pressure put on them. Did you receive any phone
calls from Professor Blakemore exerting undue pressure?
Sir Paul Nurse: I certainly received
quite a few telephone calls from Colin. He certainly was trying
to persuade me of certain opinions and situations. I would not
say that I felt under enormous pressure, but then I am in a different
position from Robin Lovell-Badge as an outside person and not
an employee. I certainly felt that there was a lot of persuasion
going on, yes.
Q132 Mr Key: Did that amount to coercion
in your view?
Sir Paul Nurse: Not coercion of
me, no.
Q133 Mr Key: Did you think this was
regular lobbying that you might have expected if you were a member
of the Task Force?
Sir Paul Nurse: I would say it
was just within limits but close to the limits in the sense that
in my normal experience in such task forces I would not have so
many one-to-one conversations outside such a Task Force. I think
it was acceptable, but there was certainly a lot of it.
Q134 Mr Key: Did you receive any
similar sort of pressure or lobbying from the NIMR?
Sir Paul Nurse: Not really, no.
I was in conversation with the members of the Task Force. I had
occasional conversations with John Skehel, who is the present
Director, but they were more conversations in passing because
I had lots to do with him wearing other hats as well. I would
not say I was being persuaded of a particular position with my
conversations with NIMR, no.
Q135 Mr Key: Thank you, Sir Paul.
Professor Flavell, did you feel any undue pressure or coercion
from either the NIMR or from Colin Blakemore?
Professor Flavell: I would say
that I was lobbied in the same way that Paul mentioned by Colin
on a couple of occasions. He sent me an e-mail once requesting
my support for a particular position in July, I think, and we
had certainly a phone call or two, one of which I remember was
to ask me to sign that document that we have actually ultimately
put together, the one that had the "without coercion"
language in it. My perception of those contacts that Colin made
is that they were not that of coercion, but obviously I am not
an employee of the MRC and although I am not a peer of Colin (Colin
is running a large organisation, I run a department of a university,
etcetera), I felt that they were somewhat inappropriate, but I
did not feel coerced.
Q136 Mr Key: Were these concerns
shared by members of the Task Force before the final meeting?
Professor Flavell: Were what?
Q137 Mr Key: The concerns about pressure,
coercion and lobbying. Was there a general discussion by members
of the Task Force before you came to your conclusions?
Professor Flavell: No, there was
not. These issues were not raised at any Task Force meeting.
Mr Key: Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Q138 Dr Turner: Paul, did you have
the impression that anyone on the Task Force was running a hidden
agenda or that there were conclusions to which the Committee was
being surreptitiously steered?
Sir Paul Nurse: I certainly did
not at the beginning. I did begin to wonder a little bit when
positions seemed to change somewhat between meetings. I remember
one example where we discussed a split site alternative in central
London. We had discussed this in one of the earlier meetings and
we completely rejected that as being a reasonable solution. At
the next meeting it came back again on the agenda and I could
not really understand it because in principle we had rejected
it. It is clear that it had come up in discussions between the
MRC and probably Imperial College that a split site should be
reconsidered, but what I felt there was that the Task Force had
considered it, we had rejected it really completely and yet it
came back again. That made me feel that sometimes there was more
going on outside the meeting than I would normally have expected.
Once again, this is a complex issue and I could imagine people
changing their minds and coming back again without necessarily
that meaning there was a hidden agenda. I think towards the end
and certainly after the Task Force had finished, when there was
still some unfinished business unfortunately, I began to feel
that there was a stronger agenda emerging that was more antagonistic
to Mill Hill than I had noticed during the Task Force. At the
very beginning, no, but one or two times during the meeting I
thought there were lots of discussions going on about outside
changing approaches. At the end I felt it became more antagonistic
towards Mill Hill.
Q139 Dr Turner: Professor Flavell,
what was your view on it?
Professor Flavell: I think that
Paul summed it up very well there. It was the same perception.
For example, the subject of the so-called "federated"
option, which is the one to split up the Institute into a number
of components, did appear in between two meetings and I did receive
an e-mail soliciting my support for that, as I just mentioned.
I would agree in general with Paul about this. However, I do not
think I have any specific evidence of specific agendas.
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