Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
SIR MICHAEL
JAY, KCMG, MR
RICHARD STAGG,
CMG, MR DAVID
WARREN AND
MR RIC
TODD
26 OCTOBER 2005
Q40 Mr Keetch: It is an astonishingly
large number. In terms of people individually being murdered—as
opposed to Iraq or tsunamis or individual incidents like that—it
is a large number of people. What amazes me is that there is no
standard procedure to deal with the murder of British citizens
overseas, when that dreadful thing happens when they are on holiday.
You are aware that I raised, with both the minister and with you,
the case of a constituent Mr Richard Collins—and his family
are aware that I am going to mention this—who was murdered
in Thailand on 9 March this year, and yet his body was allowed
to decompose to such a degree that no proper coroner's investigation
was able to be carried out. What astonishes me about this incident
is that there is no set procedure as to what information is given
to families; what information is given to the insurance companies
of the deceased concerned; in what way our consular staff overseas
tries to deal with the family back in the UK, who are obviously
going through very difficult times; and to deal with the insurance
company to try to ensure that the body is repatriated as soon
as possible. We see in our passport that Her Majesty's Government
demands that we are looked after. Surely if we, or our next of
kin, or our sons, fathers, brothers or sisters are murdered, there
ought to be a standard procedure whereby our consulate staff keep
us informed? If we cannot do that correctly, then how can we deal
with situations like tsunamis or Katrinas? I think that you ought
to look as a matter of urgency at how that is dealt with, to ensure
that when these appalling things happen—as they happen dozens
of times a year, sadly, to British citizens travelling overseas,
and are more likely to increase as travel increases—there
are standard procedures which are followed, to ensure that these
mistakes do not happen in the future.
Sir Michael Jay: I thought that
this was an important point which you raised, Mr Keetch, of which
I had not previously been aware. I asked Mr Stagg to look into
it, in case you did raise it today. Could I ask him to say a bit
more about it?
Mr Stagg: Happily. On the question
of deaths, I think we have statistics for those who die overseas,
which is about 4,000 British citizens every year. I am not sure
if they are categorised exactly by the nature of that death. In
terms of standard guidance, I have here the standard guidance
we have for our consular officials, Dealing with the death
of a British citizen overseas. So there are some quite carefully
crafted—
Q41 Chairman: Can you send that to
us, please?
Mr Stagg: I can even give a copy
after this.
Q42 Chairman: I think that the Committee
should have it formally.
Mr Stagg: Yes, I will happily
do that. The second thing to say is that, in the case of murders,
we would normally communicate with the family in the UK through
the police, because they have an investigative interest in the
case and they have trained family liaison officers, who are the
normal channel through which we work. They are trained to deal
with these issues and they have a network all round Britain, which
means they can deal with people face to face, which we obviously
do not.
Q43 Mr Keetch: Are you aware of an
organisation called SAMM, Support for Murders and Manslaughters
of British citizens overseas?
Mr Stagg: I have heard of it.
I have never dealt with it.
Q44 Mr Keetch: I would suggest that
the Foreign Office ought to inform next of kin of British citizens
who have been murdered of the existence of that organisation,
because certainly in this instance—and I think in other
instances—that does not normally happen. If we cannot support
citizens back at home in that respect, then I think that we are
failing.
Mr Stagg: Thank you very much.
We are very keen to use these occasions to learn as well as to
give you our views. To conclude, in the tsunami we found a number
of organisations which we had not heard of before who were specialist
in helping those who had been bereaved. So this is a help to us.
Q45 Mr Mackay: Sir Michael, as has
been mentioned earlier, the tsunami was geographically widespread.
When you are doing a post-mortem and learning lessons, you presumably
will have a chance to compare best practice in different embassies
and high commissions, because it seems to me that some did considerably
better than others—and I am not going to name them, because
I think that would be invidious at a public meeting like this.
In one particular case there seemed to be severe shortcomings,
and in one particular case a specific senior diplomat fell a long
way below the standards that should be expected. I gather that
this is a matter that has been and is being taken up. However,
I do hope that we can have an assurance that you will compare,
because there seemed to be a vast difference in performance. I
am not on a witch-hunt; I am trying to ensure best practice thereafter.
Sir Michael Jay: Certainly we
would look at the differing nature of the response from different
embassies and high commissions, and draw lessons from that. I
do not want to get into the particular case either, though there
are, as you know, differing views about that. The general point
you make, however, is an entirely valid one.
Q46 Richard Younger-Ross: Of course,
with the tsunami there are bodies that are recovered. That is
a closure, in a sense. There were many British citizens in the
tsunami whose bodies were never recovered: who are missing. There
are others who are kidnapped, presumed murdered or whatever. You
will know the case of the Popes, whose son was kidnapped, presumed
murdered, in Angola, and there has been a long correspondence
with the department.
Sir Michael Jay: Yes. I have met
the family in Luanda.
Q47 Richard Younger-Ross: One of
the difficulties they face and others face is presumption-of-death
certificates, as I raised with you yesterday, and advice given
them at that time was contradictory and wrong. Advice was given
on what the presumption of death was in Angola, but of course
most families are not interested in what happened in Angola; they
are interested in the death and how they register it in the UK.
Do you have standard notes of how consular officials should deal
with people who are missing and presumption of death, both in
terms of abroad and in the UK? If so, could that be placed with
this Committee? Also, would you look at revising your draft Support
for British Nationals Abroad document, to include a little
bit more on that? I think that is an area which is perhaps weak
at the moment.
Mr Stagg: I do not know exactly
what you are looking for in our guidance, but I will find what
we have and send it to the Committee, and then if there are other
issues—
Q48 Chairman: We will write to you.
Sir Michael Jay: If it would help
the Committee, I think that we should try to look through—given
the real interest that you have in consular work and the importance
for us of getting your suggestions—and make certain that
the Committee has all the relevant documents here. Even though
this may be quite a bundle, I think it would be helpful for you
to have that.
Q49 Chairman: We will decide which
ones we want to cover. Send us the lot! Before we move off consular
services, can I raise the question of your public service agreement
targets? I understand that the FCO failed to meet four of the
six PSA targets on consular services and that, specifically, you
failed to meet the target with regard to issuing passports overseas.
You were supposed to have 95% issued within five working days,
and you only got 73.3%. Is that acceptable? If it is not acceptable,
can you explain why it has happened and what you are going to
do about it?
Sir Michael Jay: We have worked
really hard to meet the targets and it is not acceptable not to
meet them, unless there are overriding reasons why we have not.
I am afraid I ought to, but I do not have the details of our consular
targets at hand. I do not know whether any of my colleagues do.
Mr Stagg: To respond to your underlying
question, I think that there have been problems over technology
to a degree. We introduced, over the last two years, a new system.
Q50 Chairman: This is Prism you are
talking about?
Mr Stagg: No, Chairman. I would
happily come on to Prism, but this is GenIE.
Q51 Chairman: More technology problems?
Mr Stagg: I think not extremely
difficult, but implementing these programmes around the world
in quite differing environments is quite a challenge.
Q52 Chairman: What is the programme
called?
Mr Stagg: It is GenIE.
Chairman: Is it still in the bottle?
Q53 Mr Keetch: Lamp!
Mr Stagg: We could easily give
you an overview of this in writing, because it is more than just
the technology issues.[6]
Q54 Chairman: Can I move on to some other
areas? Diplomatic representation overseas. We have just had a
letter from the Foreign Secretary, listing the number of posts
which are being planned to be closed or already have been closed;
also plans to localise some others and to change facilities in
other places. I had a personal experience when I led a Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association delegation to Swaziland in September.
As you are aware, we have closed our high commission and, while
I was there, we were advertising the sale of the residence in
the local newspapers. This has gone down extremely badly in Swaziland.
I understand that you are also closing Lesotho, and both are being
run from Pretoria by our new high commissioner—who is a
very good high commissioner—in South Africa. There are similar
concerns from the Pacific. We have had letters, representations
to do with closures in a number of the Pacific islands—all
of them Commonwealth countries, as are Lesotho and Swaziland—and
similar concerns have been expressed for other parts of the world.
Can you explain why these decisions have been taken? Also, do
you agree that for many, very small, Commonwealth countries which
have long associations with the UK, this is being interpreted
as our withdrawing from interest in their countries, downgrading
their significance, and they feel deeply hurt by this?
Sir Michael Jay: The overseas
network can never be static. We have, over the last seven years
or so, opened 29 posts and closed 25, and that is a reflection
of shifting priorities. One of the things that we try to do is
to ensure that our resources, which are constrained, are allocated
in accordance with our priorities and, in particular, with the
strategic priorities which were set out in the strategy document
which the Foreign Secretary and I published a couple of years
ago. That is the starting point for where we want to put our resources.
With the resources constrained, if you want to put your resources
into areas which have become a high priority, you have to take
them from somewhere. This inevitably means some hard choices and
hard priorities—about places which are not unimportant but
which are not as important as the high-priority ones. We would
much rather not have had to close any posts but, had we not closed
some, we would not have been able to put our resources where they
needed to be, or we would have run our network too thin across
the board and been unable to achieve what we need to do in the
places that really matter. We judged that our interests in Swaziland
and Lesotho could be satisfactorily represented by our high commissioner
in Pretoria and equally that, in the Pacific, we could move to
more of a hub-and-spoke arrangement, making more use of our high
commission in Suva, in Fiji. These were not easy decisions; they
were decisions that were made after a quite rigorous examination
of where our interests lay; they were as a result of quite lengthy
discussions with ministers, and taking into account various other
considerations. That is the explanation for it, Mr Chairman. I
accept that it is seen by those concerned as being a withdrawal
of interest, and to an extent it is. It does not mean a complete
withdrawal of interest. We will continue to have relations with
the countries and, in the case of Swaziland, there will be an
honorary consul there and he will be supported by regular visits
from the high commissioner and his staff from Pretoria.
Q55 Mr Keetch: Again, this was mentioned
yesterday but I want to raise it in the case of Seattle, where
we are closing a consulate and we are replacing that with an honorary
consul, who I am sure will do a very good job. We are replacing
that with a trade post, which I am told will not have fewer people
in it than the consul's office did, in a place where there are
so many ex-pats that they even have a cricket league, and where
important decisions are made for Rolls-Royce and other companies
about their investment in the Boeing programmes; and at a time
also, I am told, when other aspects of UK-plc, namely the overseas
offices of the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Development Agency,
are considering moving into that area because they believe there
is a very good trade reason to do so. I would like to be assured
that, when we make a decision to do this, we consult with other
aspects of government like the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh
Assembly and that we also look at this over a long period of time.
Closing a very small consulate, replacing it with a trade office,
then having an honorary consul, then maybe having other departments
of government move in there, I am not sure, in the long run, will
save a huge amount of money. Certainly in terms of what the mayor
and other important people in that city think, they consider it
to be a slap in the face to them—because they see HM Government
is moving out. I would hope that, when we make these closures—particularly
if we are going to localise them, as is described—we see
whether we are actually saving any money in the long run, looking
at the long-term consequences as opposed to just making that decision.
Sir Michael Jay: We do try to
do that, Mr Keetch. The decision to close the consulate-general
in Seattle was one which was taken as part of the restructuring
of the whole network in the United States, in order to ensure
that our resources were effectively deployed across the United
States, and taking into account the relative importance of different
cities and different areas. It was taken in close conjunction
with UKTI,[7]
because it is essentially a commercial post. The judgment was
made that it would meet our interests in Seattle if we were to
move to having a locally employed team there, supported by stronger
UKTI representation elsewhere on the west coast. The decisions
are not arbitrary; they are taken after a really careful consideration
of where our interests lie, what our resource constraints are,
and how best we can allocate our resources over time. If I may
say so, your point about Scotland and Wales is a very good one.
I think I need to make sure that we are closely in touch—as
I believe we are—with the Scottish Executive and with the
Welsh Assembly over their plans. As I think you know, in many
parts of the globe the Scottish and the Welsh are indeed co-located
with our embassies and high commissions, and we do work very closely
together.
Q56 Sir John Stanley: Sir Michael, I
return to another matter that you and your department will be
familiar with. Instead of flying last night from Belgrade to Podgorica,
I chose to come back to have the pleasure of this meeting with
you.
Sir Michael Jay: Thank you, Sir
John!
Q57 Sir John Stanley: At the meetings
I had in Belgrade on Monday and Tuesday, it was absolutely clear
that there will be a referendum in Montenegro next February/March.
Nobody expects the result of that referendum to be anything other
than independence for Montenegro, and the Serbian senior ministers
that we met were absolutely clear that, if that was the wish of
the Montenegrins, Serbia would not stand in the way of Montenegro's
independence. Against that, first of all is it not very regrettable
that, at this extremely politically important time, we still have
no embassy in Podgorica? If you agree that the events in Montenegro
in the next few months will be as I have indicated, surely the
Foreign Office should now be taking very early steps to establish
an embassy in Podgorica? This would be a country which will be
looking for EU applicant status; it has an important position
in the Balkans; it is not wholly unrelated to the important issue
of a settlement in relation to Kosovo. Surely this is an area
which, certainly on political grounds, most conspicuously should
be having more attention on the ground from the Foreign Office?
Sir Michael Jay: I will look into
that question, Sir John. Clearly Montenegro will have an important
role to play in our overall Balkans policy. We have to consider
whether we can represent it adequately from elsewhere or whether
we need to be represented there. If we are represented there,
of course, we will have to make a judgment as to where we take
the resources from. There are no free posts. We are under pressure
to reduce our total number of staff and if we are to open up in
places, we have to take them from somewhere else. However, I will
look into that.
Q58 Sir John Stanley: The root issue
is perhaps that the Foreign Office should have been tougher with
the Treasury in accepting assumptions for efficiency savings,
and indeed assumptions of the benefits of IT, than the department
has actually been. It has been seriously salami-sliced by the
Treasury. Perhaps you at senior official level and your ministers
need to do some more standing-up-toughly to the Treasury's demands.
Sir Michael Jay: We certainly
felt at the time that we were standing up toughly, I can tell
you, Sir John. Some of the outcome of the last spending round
was, from the Foreign Office's point of view, very satisfactory,
particularly in the amount of money that the Treasury agreed to
give us for the security of our overseas posts, following the
attack on our consulate-general in Istanbul. At the time, that
was a very high priority for us, because it was essential to be
able to reassure our staff that we were providing them with the
security to enable them to operate. That was a very high priority
for our settlement, and I personally was very glad that that money
was given to us. Like all government departments, however, we
were subject to the efficiency targets, which we are now aiming
to meet—but I will look into that.
Q59 Chairman: Before I bring in Andrew
Mackinlay, can you tell us what annual savings in financial terms
will be made by these closures and localisations of posts which
you have just announced, and about which you have sent us a memo.
Sir Michael Jay: There are two
issues here. One is about the savings in terms of money, and the
other is the savings in terms of staff. I might ask either Dickie
Stagg or Ric Todd to say a bit more about that.
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