Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 25 JANUARY 2005
MR JONATHAN
SAYEED MP
Q40 Mr Dismore: Let us go on to visit
number (ii). I think here one of the concerns I have is that this
particular visit was written up and sent out with a write up in
a Christmas card presumably at the end of 2003 as an update to
indicate which new staff were coming on board. Is that not using
that visit for marketing purposes?
Mr Sayeed: Yes.
Q41 Mr Dismore: And that is nothing
to do with the website?
Mr Sayeed: It was obviously taken
from the website, yes. I was not aware about the Christmas card
or that this was going out. I had a very limited set of tasks
within the company.
Q42 Mr Dismore: I was going to ask
you about that because you told us that your role was in strategic
marketing and yet we see you charged £250 for very detailed
services in relation to visit number (i) and £375 in relation
to the visit of the gardening club as a whole. That does not sound
very strategic to me, that sounds very hands-on.
Mr Sayeed: Did I accompany people?
Number (i) was essentially to give those people advice about their
daughter setting up some sort of joint venture with The English
Manner. The total in three and a quarter years of invoices was
something like £1,800; it worked out at about £600 a
year. If I may say, it is an absolutely trifling amount. What
tended to happen is that if there was spare money in the bank
account Alexandra would say, "Do you want a little bit of
a consultancy fee?" I was giving up a considerable amount
of time. There were specific things I did do. In invoicing you
have to ascribe a reason for submitting an invoice. In the case
of The Garden Club one, I had entertained them at the Carlton
and I accompanied them to Gorhambury. This took a considerable
amount of time and that seemed a perfectly fair thing to put down
on an invoice.
Q43 Mr Dismore: Let us get this straight.
You discussed and negotiated the invoices ex post facto?
Mr Sayeed: If there was money
in the account then Alexandra would say, "You can charge
a fee".
Q44 Mr Dismore: But it is up to you
what you charged for.
Mr Sayeed: It has to be something
that actually happened. This is a very small company that hardly
ever has any money, that has built up debts and most of the time
I gave was given for free. Now and again there was some money
in the account and Alexandra suggested I put in an invoice, but
what I put it in for had to take place.
Q45 Mr Dismore: In relation to the
visit of the US Supreme Court justices, I believe you introduced
them to Black Rod.
Mr Sayeed: Yes.
Q46 Mr Dismore: Did Black Rod know
they were paying customers?
Mr Sayeed: I am sorry, they were
not paying customers. They were not customers of The English Manner.
They paid the cost of a buffet lunch which was approximately £16
a head. They had asked could they come to the House of Commons
and be shown round. I did accompany them to the Queen's Birthday
Parade and I was very happy to do so. I also had lunch with them
in the Goring Hotel. Essentially, as I understand it, Mrs Messervy
had been approached directly by a justice and a friend of his
and hers because they knew that she was good at arranging things
and they particularly wanted to go to the Queen's Birthday Parade
and, as we all know, tickets are very difficult to get and she
arranged them through the Royal Household.
Q47 Mr Dismore: On any of these visits
to the House numbered (i) to (v)[15]
or any other visit which we may not know about—
Mr Sayeed: I think that was, if
I may say, rather sneakily inserted, "visits which we may
not know about". The fact is that Sir Philip has spent five
months going through every single visit that we have done.
Q48 Mr Dismore: I was not talking
about dinners, I was talking about tours. Let us stick to these
(i) to (v). Did you introduce the visitors to any other Members
of the House of Commons or Members of the House of Lords?
Mr Sayeed: Yes. On one occasion
I stopped to talk to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the war
and I introduced to him two guests I had with me because they
certainly had pretty strong views about the war and there was
a very short discussion.
Q49 Mr Dismore: But no other Members
were involved at any stage?
Mr Sayeed: No other Members were
involved in escorting anyone around the House of Commons or House
of Lords. There was one occasion when another Member was going
to join us at my request but did not do so. My request was on
the basis that we needed two Members for that number in the Members'
Dining Room.
Q50 Mr Dismore: Was that other Member
aware of your relationship with English Manner?
Mr Sayeed: That I could not say.
It certainly was not put to them that they should come and see
some guests in whom I have a financial interest because that was
not the case. It would have been very much along the lines of
coming and meeting some American friends and I will buy lunch
or dinner or whatever it was and we will enjoy it.
Q51 Mr Dismore: And no other Members
were involved at any stage?
Mr Sayeed: No other Members had
been involved in The English Manner whatsoever.
Q52 Mr Dismore: In terms of you introducing
them to them on tours or in any other way?
Mr Sayeed: If I was stopped in
St Stephen's or Central Lobby or something like that and somebody
wanted to make a particular point to me then it would have been
a discourtesy not to introduce them to the people I was accompanying
and I no doubt would have done so, but there is nothing that particularly
occurs to mind.
Q53 Chairman: You are a highly experienced
Member of Parliament. You have been here on and off for some 22
years. You were clearly aware of the potential sensitivities in
this area because of the instructions that you gave that your
membership of the House was not to be used to promote the business.
Nonetheless, as we have seen, those instructions clearly were
not followed through. Should you not have taken more steps to
satisfy yourself that there was no linkage? Should you not have
looked at the website, for example, to make sure that associations
were not being made contrary to your instructions?
Mr Sayeed: Yes, I should have.[16]
Q54 Chairman: If instructions were
clearly given to Mrs Ford, who was a fellow shareholder and a
director, that your name should not be used, how could she have
so misunderstood them to put on the website for the company the
record of her evening with you and the quotation that appears
on the company website on page 3 of the Commissioner's report
that I have already referred to, "Jonathan Sayeed led us
through the House of Commons and the House of Lords," et
cetera, et cetera?[17]
How could she have misunderstood your instructions?
Mr Sayeed: She did not put it
on the website; *** did.
Q55 Chairman: It appeared on the
company website.
Mr Sayeed: I am not disagreeing.
As I said right at the beginning, I kick myself extremely hard
for not having invigilated the website. Had I done so, this would
never have occurred and I would not be in front of this Committee.
Q56 Mr Pound: You referred to one
of the dinners that took place as not being a dinner with a friend,
you referred to the journalist Bob Morris.
Mr Sayeed: Yes.
Q57 Mr Pound: It is a very flattering
article about you. I am rather jealous. You are quoted in it.
Did you sign off this article before it was published in Travel
and Leisure?
Mr Sayeed: No. Indeed I did not
even know it was going to be in Travel and Leisure. Mr
Morris was a New York Times journalist. He had approached
Alexandra Messervy who he had heard. As I understood it and as
Mrs Messervy understood it, he wanted to write an article for
the New York Times about etiquette and class. Neither Mrs
Messervy nor I were told at any time that this article would appear
in any other publication but the New York Times. When Mrs
Messervy saw a draft of the article, and I did not see it, she
asked for all references to Buckingham Palace and to the Palace
of Westminster to be removed, but Mr Morris's editor would not
do so. Quite clearly a journalist writing an article is not going
to say, "I was taken round on a bog standard tour of the
Palace of Westminster by a bog standard MP," because that
is not particularly attractive in an article. He has clearly hyped
it up, but my whole understanding of his visit was that it was
to write about etiquette, it was nothing to do with English Manner
and nothing to do with Parliament.[18]
Q58 Mr Pound: Are you familiar with
Travel and Leisure? Do you know the publication?
Mr Sayeed: No.
Q59 Mr Pound: It is certainly "the
bible" of the tourist industry in America, so it is very
widely read. The reason I ask that is because you are quoted throughout
this, "If you do anything with panache it's going to be alright".
I assume that the quotations were taken from the dinner, not subsequently.
Mr Sayeed: Was it dinner or lunch?
15 Appendix 1, para 39. Back
16
Note by witness: I am glad that you have acknowledged
that I did give those instructions. Back
17
Appendix 1, para 5(i). Back
18
Note by witness: and would be for the New York Times. Back
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