Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 25 JANUARY 2005
MR JONATHAN
SAYEED MP
Q80 Mr Thomas: 26 May 2004.
Mr Sayeed: This is the charity
auction?
Q81 Mr Thomas: Yes.
Mr Sayeed: Well, I say two months.
I am not really—
Q82 Mr Thomas: You had met them at
the charity auction, had you?
Mr Sayeed: No, I did not meet
them at the charity auction.[25]
I had met them previously on a visit to the United States, but
I cannot tell you when that visit was without having to go through
diaries, but those I do not have with me. I will not pretend they
were close personal friends.
Q83 Mr Thomas: Can you tell me if
the lots provided at that charity auction, obviously included
dinner at Strangers', but did it include a tour as well and did
it include Gallery tickets?
Mr Sayeed: Not Gallery tickets.
The lot did not include a tour; I took them round on a tour. This
was a straight charitable donation, not by The English Manner,
I do not think, but—
Q84 Mr Thomas: Not by The English
Manner because the evidence says it was?
Mr Sayeed: Yes, but whether that
was to do with payments or not, I am sorry, I am not absolutely
certain. The point about the charitable auction was that it was
for charity. There was absolutely no profit or—
Q85 Mr Thomas: I accept that, but
the donation made in the auction, was the name "English Manner"
associated with that donation?
Mr Sayeed: I was not there, but
I presume it must have been, yes, thinking about it now.
Chairman: If there are no more questions
on that particular section, perhaps we can move on to the last
one which deals with late registration and information to the
Department of Finance and Administration and whether the appropriate
Chinese walls were in place.
Q86 Mr Pound: Mr Sayeed, this was
actually touched on earlier on by Mrs Browning and I apologise
for revisiting it, but, for the sake of clarity, I think it is
necessary. You repeatedly assured the Commissioner that you had
only made four registered visits to the United States on behalf
of English Manner, and you then discovered two more. Could you
explain to us the process by which you subsequently discovered
the other two trips.
Mr Sayeed: Yes, I think this was
actually prompted by a letter from the Registrar of Members' Interests
and I said to my PA, "Are we absolutely certain there is
nothing else I should have registered? Go through the diaries",
and she found that she had not done something and I believe, and
Sir Philip can confirm this, that she contacted Sir Philip to
apologise for this. The process essentially is that I say to my
office, "Make sure that everything is registered. If you
are in any doubt, draft a letter and ask advice". When we
all employ staff, and this to a certain extent goes to the problem
with the website and also with late registration, we all employ
staff and when we give them instructions and over a period of
years you find out that those instructions are very well complied
with, you trust people and you do not go around checking on each
of the things that they do. Therefore, having given that instruction
and my PA knowing that was the case, I was quite clear that everything
that I had done was properly registered, and I have always thought
that I have been meticulous in registration, that that was all
up to date, but when we got the letter from the Registrar, she
obviously checked again, maybe it was on my instructions, but
I cannot say, to see that everything was. It probably was actually
because the letter would have been to me, and she found these
other two visits and then responded to that letter, registering
them, so I can only apologise that it was late. Similarly, if
I may just make the other point, I have employed Mrs Messervy
in different functions since 1995 before I became a Member of
Parliament again and I have found her to be absolutely meticulous,
or I had found her to be absolutely meticulous, in what she did
and I had grown to rely upon her, so when I was assured by her
that after the departure of *** the website had been cleaned completely,
I believed it.
Q87 Mr Pound: When you referred to
your PA earlier on as the person who had inaccurately submitted
details of only four trips, is the PA your parliamentary PA, paid
for by Parliament?
Mr Sayeed: Yes.
Q88 Mr Pound: But not Mrs Messervy?
Mr Sayeed: No.
Q89 Mr Pound: And when the two subsequent
trips were—
Mr Sayeed: Sorry, but can I just
say that that parliamentary PA was the person who contacted Sir
Philip to acknowledge that it was due to an error on her part
that these two other trips had not been registered.
Q90 Mr Pound: It may be an unfair
question, but as they are a large body of trips to the United
States, and there is an element of confusion there, can you explain
why two trips to the United States, which certainly would have
stuck in my mind, did not stick in your PA's mind?
Mr Sayeed: No, I cannot.
Q91 Chairman: Do you think it was
fair in your memorandum to blame a member of your staff for what
is the responsibility of a Member of Parliament to make sure that
the register is accurate?
Mr Sayeed: No, I am sorry, Sir
George, I actually acknowledged that it was my responsibility,
but I was trying to explain why or what happened and how it came
about and that I acknowledged in my memorandum that it is my responsibility,
if I can find the particular place.
Q92 Chairman: "The reason was
due to forgetfulness on the part of a member of staff in my office".[26]
In view of the ultimate responsibility, I wondered whether that
was a fair comment.
Mr Sayeed: I accept that ultimately
I am to blame. I am accepting the blame, but then I am giving
the reason that it took place.[27]
Chairman: Do colleagues want to ask any
questions on this?
Q93 Mr Dismore: Just a short one.
I just want to get it straight about what you said about how these
two trips came to be registered because if you look at page 13
in the footnote,[28]
it says here that the notice of two further trips was given to
the office of the Commissioner on 5 January 2005, which does not
sound to me as though it was triggered by a letter from the Registrar,
a general reminder notice, which came out some considerable time
before.
Mr Sayeed: I think you will find
it was a letter in January which was sent.
Sir Philip Mawer: Chairman, it
was a letter circulated in December advising Members of the appearance
of the printed edition of the Register and the need to make sure
their entries were up to date for that purpose and the letter
arrived on 5 January.
Chairman: Before we come to your final
statement, are there any final questions which any colleagues
want to ask?
Q94 Mr David: Can I ask about the
employment of Mrs Messervy and I have a few brief questions on
that. It seems to us that Mrs Messervy had a number of different
roles.
Mr Sayeed: Yes.
Q95 Mr David: She worked as your
constituency assistant, but she also did work in London presumably
for yourself, but also for English Manner, and she was a director
of English Manner. At various times she was the office-holder
in your local Conservative Association.
Mr Sayeed: Throughout the period,
yes.
Q96 Mr David: Can I ask you, do you
think that was a rather confused set of roles and, with hindsight,
it would have been far better if she had been given a clearly
specified role or roles, particularly with regard to where she
was based because I understand you made submissions to the House
that she was employed in London, whereas in fact you have also
described her as a constituency assistant at least in part?
Mr Sayeed: I would be quite happy,
as I am sure she would, to take advice on how best she should
not just describe her role, but demonstrate the clear separation
between her roles. In the evidence that I have given, I believe
that this is something that happens in some ways fairly frequently
when, for instance, a Member employs a member of their family
to assist them in one form or another in their parliamentary duties.
Now, that member of the family no doubt will assist them when
it comes to an election or in canvassing between elections or
running a house or doing a whole variety of things. We all recognise
that they are able to separate those roles, that they are not
abusing or misusing parliamentary facilities or abusing or misusing
the income that they are given by virtue of their work in assisting
the Member, and that they are actually doing the job for which
they are paid from the parliamentary allowance. Now, in some ways
I suppose there is an analogy with Mrs Messervy who, I accept,
she and her husband are family friends, but she was able to separate
her roles. Sir Philip, in his evidence, has found no occasion
when she had ever used or misused parliamentary facilities to
promote the company and that is in the evidence, though I cannot
tell you exactly where it is, but I recognise it is there, and
she was able to compartmentalise the different tasks that she
did. Now, if there is advice that Sir Philip or anyone else can
give as to how we can demonstrate that is the case, then I am
very happy to take it. She did a very useful, and she continues
to do a very useful, job as an assistant in the constituency and
she is extremely able and she works extremely hard and she is
perfectly capable of finding the time to do the different roles.
I can only assert, as she has asserted, that she compartmentalised
those roles.
Q97 Mr David: Was there a formal
number of job descriptions because obviously she did not have
one job, but a variety of different jobs and obviously there was
a tendency for overlap between the different roles? Would it have
been better if there had been a number of job descriptions clearly
specifying what she did with each contract?
Mr Sayeed: Well, as I said, when
she was employed, there was no requirement for a job description,
but I am quite prepared to take advice as to how best to put it
in order to demonstrate a separation of roles and no conflict,
but the salient point is that there has never been any actual
conflict between her roles. I only employ her to do one job and
for that job I have now submitted a job description.
Q98 Mr David: So you would have had
advice from the parliamentary authorities and the Department of
Finance and Administration in terms of, for example, declaring
where your assistant was based and whether she was full-time or
part-time, and information would have been provided for you on
not one, but I imagine many occasions?
Mr Sayeed: Well, I get the same
advice as we all get. I had been expecting Mrs Messervy to have
come here on more than one occasion on a full-time basis for reasons
that have been set out. As you know, we get the forms to complete
by the Department, I think, in February for what is going to happen
from April onwards and I completed two of them in good faith,
expecting her to come and I did not correct when that did not
occur and for that I can only repeat my apology. However, it made
no difference to the secretarial allowance I was entitled to receive.
Chairman: Are there any more questions
that colleagues want to put to Mr Sayeed?
Q99 Mr Dismore: I have two final
questions. First of all, you have clearly put forward a very strong
case that you have done nothing wrong, so why did you decide not
to meet English Manner clients in the House anymore?
Mr Sayeed: What I have actually
said is that I will not meet them if they are friends and clients
of English Manner.[29]
The answer to your question is that I, quite frankly, could not
bear for this to happen again and if what has happened is anything
to do with Parliament, as it clearly is, and is the reason for
my being here today and for this Committee to convene, then I
do not want it to happen again, so it is better I just wash my
hands of the whole thing.
25 Note by witness: I did not go to the charity
auction. Back
26
Appendix 3. Back
27
Note by witness: The full quotation of that paragraph
is "As regards the late notification of the Registrar of
Members' Interests of two visits to the United States I accept
that ultimately I am to blame. The reason was due to forgetfulness
on the part of a member of staff in my office.". Back
28
Appendix 1, para 38. Back
29
Note by witness: I have made clear repeatedly that I did
not meet clients of The English Manner at Parliament, I met them
as friends. Back
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