Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
15 MAY 2006 DEPUTY
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
JOHN YATES
QPM, DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT
GRAHAM MCNULTY
AND MS
CARMEN DOWD
Q20 Mr Burrowes: Consciously, from
their point of view, if investigations were to continue there
could be information from that which could be of assistance to
enable you to deal appropriately with your investigation to deal
with it in that way. You can use it to the benefit of the investigation
rather than looking at it as in any way seen to inhibit such investigation.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
You then go to the heart of how your evidence is gathered in terms
of what we have access to, did they have an interview, period
of disclosure, did they have the benefit of caution? All those
issues go to the fairness of the impartiality points that we made
earlier around how the process is managed.
Q21 Mr Burrowes: Is that not perhaps
the flaw in the case you are making, the fact that we are not
obviously a court, plainly not a court, and we are not subject
to those precautions. Indeed, when a witness comes they come initially
voluntarily and the fact they are coming voluntarily means that
you can benefit from that voluntary attendance. It would be hard
to see how clearly they would be prejudicing a fair trial when
they are voluntarily giving answers to questions.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I would probably dispute they come voluntarily in some of the
circumstances. If you call them and they do not come, firstly
I know you have wide-ranging powers to compel them and, secondly,
the type of figures we are talking about are people who have to
come before your Committee in my view. They are then subject to
your proper scrutiny and the very wide-range of powers you have
but do not have the benefits and the constraints that we operate
under in the criminal investigation about the way we obtain our
evidence.
Q22 Chairman: They are queuing up
to come and tell us how unjustly they have been treated.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
What, by us?
Chairman: By the world.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
The world!
Q23 Chairman: Essentially they are
asking to come so that in public they can say they are not the
kind of people they have been described in the press as. Why should
we deny them the opportunity to come and do that?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
Because there is an ongoing criminal inquiry where we are considering
matters that are of the utmost seriousness, with full deference
to the wide powers you have and, in my view, this should take
precedence over your deliberations.
Q24 Chairman: I wonder if we are
talking at cross-purposes here because in a sense you are talking
to us as though we are doing the equivalent job to you whereas,
in fact, our enterprise is entirely different. We are looking
simply at the system for governing propriety in the honours system.
As a way of illuminating that we have evidence proposed from some
people who have been caught up in that system but the nature of
our inquiry is not the forensic one and the criminal one that
you have, it is one that is designed to look at the system and
is designed to do a certain job. It may be that these are complementary
inquiries.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
There is absolutely no rocket science about what we do. You will
be asking exactly the same questions and have exactly the same
areas of interest in these witnesses that we have about how any
loan was garnered, how it was going to be paid, what were the
issues, who spoke to you, how did it happen. These are very simple
issues but those are the very simple questions that we need to
have answered to ensure that we can conduct our matters to their
natural conclusion. The areas of interest will not be complementary
in my view, they will be exactly the same.
Q25 Chairman: Some of them have written
to us telling us these things anyway, already.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
It is entirely within their right to do so. We would like—in
the nicest possible way—to get to them first and get their
accounts in evidential format that we can potentially present
to the Crown Prosecution Service at a later stage to say, "Is
there a case to answer here?"
Q26 Grant Shapps: Essentially you
have got a problem here because you have come here today, six
weeks after you first appeared on 27 March when we were led to
believe this was a matter that would not take months and months
to resolve, to tell us that actually things are running slower
than you had anticipated, witnesses and paperwork are slower in
coming forward. At the same time you need to tell us enough to
stave off our eventually inevitable report. My running commentary
of the discussion so far in my mind—I do not speak for anyone
else—would be that I am far from convinced so far. You have
not given us the compelling reasons that we are looking for not
to proceed with our own investigations. Apart from anything, as
colleagues have mentioned, it seems to us that these people are
contacting newspapers all the time and telling them their side
of the story and what they think, and that is fine with you but
actually for some reason Parliament cannot do its job. That just
seems to be in the wrong proportions. Are you sure there is not
something else you could be telling us in order to convince us?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
As you know, as I said, this is not an investigation that has
suffered with leaks or briefings or off record briefings or briefings
in the corridor, we have conducted this with complete discretion
and that has enormous advantages. With the greatest of respect
to this room, if I am going to go into detail of the evidence
I have uncovered I do not have the confidence that it will not
find its way into the public domain and I do not think you would
expect me to. What I have said, and I am trying to labour the
point, is there are issues which have been uncovered that require
further detailed examination. I am asking you to have confidence
in me, as a senior officer, and I am saying that with due integrity.
There are issues which require further examination and the examination
should take place by the police in a way and with the proper constraints
of the criminal law but you have to take my word for that. Where
it leads to I do not know and I cannot speculate.
Q27 Grant Shapps: In a sense we did
take your word for that six weeks ago, what is the time now?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I knew you were going to ask that. Having said I am reluctant
to go into timings, I would hope to have a preliminary submission
to the CPS probably in September which will be a preliminary view
to say where we are going. That is what I have agreed with Carmen
and counsel. That will be my aim, which is actually not that far
away. Many of our witnesses are incredibly busy people, they do
not just turn up the next day for interviews as one would like,
they say, "In two or three weeks' time we can see you because
we are out or abroad or wherever". It is not as straightforward
as saying people are flocking to my door to be interviewed. I
am sure they are doing their very best but it is not straightforward.
Q28 Grant Shapps: You are talking
about a time, which you say is not far away, which is four months
away which is way outside the initial indications on this.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I do not think I committed myself last time, I said I would come
back and tell you how I was doing. I never said I would have a
result in May/June, I said I would come back and tell you how
I was getting on because it was so early. Most investigations
of this sort can take a long time. You look at the average fraud
inquiry, for example, it will take many years. What I will do
with this, as I have said, is keep it focused.
Q29 Grant Shapps: These witnesses
have become, in a sense, central to our own honours and propriety
report/investigation. If you are asking us to put that on ice
until the autumn that pushes our own parliamentary work behind.
What would be your objection, if any, to us interviewing the same
witnesses in private?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I understand that it is not really in private because transcripts
are published pretty soon afterwards.
Q30 Chairman: That is up to us to
decide. It can be published after you have come to a conclusion
with your inquiries.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
That is a possibility. It puts people under the same pressure
but not the wide public scrutiny that a TV appearance might do.
That is a possibility.
Q31 David Heyes: I think we need
to remind ourselves that we started this inquiry long before these
events about loans for peerages. We have got an ongoing ethics
and standards inquiry. Tomorrow we are seeing the Cabinet Secretary
and some members of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Later in the week we have got some academic experts to give us
their views on these sorts of issues. We are going to go along
and do that. I wonder—this is the question—whether
you are asking us to close down that line of inquiry entirely,
to put our ethics and standards inquiry on the shelf until September
or maybe some later date when you feel confident to say to us,
"You can go ahead with this". You said it would be unhelpful
to interview any potential witness or potential suspect. I am
sure that the great and good that we are seeing in the next week
would not fall into that category but it could be as we go on
with our inquiry that people who superficially look entirely innocent
of any suspicion, entirely above suspicion, later turn out to
have been drawn into this and to be potentially suspects or witnesses
for you. Are you really saying to us, "Stop your inquiry
altogether" and if you are not we need to be clearer on how
far you say we can go in your view?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
In an ideal world it would be the former, but I also recognise
the challenges that poses for you. As ever in life there are grey
areas and compromises to be drawn. You are absolutely right in
terms of people who at the moment are completely above suspicion
who suddenly fall into the category of being a suspect and I cannot
say when that is going to happen, or if it is going to happen.
Your key people this week, who knows? I could not say. In an ideal
world, it would be to do just what you said, to suspend those
issues while we do this.
Q32 David Heyes: We think we know
the names of the people you would have on an interview list, because
they are in the public domain, names like Patel, Levy, Ashcroft
and so on. We understand that you are asking us to steer clear
of people who fall into that category, but I am still struggling
to understand where the demarcation line is where you would be
content for us to go ahead, and presumably the Cabinet Secretary
would be content for us to see him tomorrow, and the Lords, Hurd
and people like that who are members of the House of Lords Appointments
Commission. It could be, of course, that they reveal things in
our inquiry with them tomorrow that might relate to other individuals
who might be on the list of suspects that you are not able to
share with us or that has not got its way into the public domain.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
If there is a compromise to be had it would be for a detailed
conversation outside of this room on those issues because I have
not got that absolute detail to hand now. Certainly we need to
consider all of those issues and ask you to be willing to consider
those issues.
Q33 David Heyes: To put it more directly,
can you conceive of a situation where privately outside this room
you would be able to give the Chairman a list of names of people
who you would not want us to involve in our inquiry?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
Yes.
Q34 Jenny Willott: I just want to
ask one question to Ms Dowd. It is the same question that Tony
asked DAC Yates at the beginning. Looking at what has been gathered
so far and the evidence that has been passed over to the police,
in your opinion as a very initial thought are you looking at any
realistic prospects of prosecution?
Ms Dowd: That would be impossible
to comment on at this stage, it is too early in the investigation.
You have heard that only on Saturday nine lever arch files of
evidence were handed to the police.
Q35 Jenny Willott: I thought you
said that was the second bunch of information that was passed
over.
Ms Dowd: Yes. We had a preliminary
report and submission of approximately 1,000 pages which is being
considered.
Q36 Jenny Willott: You cannot say
from that whether it looks like—
Ms Dowd: No.
Q37 Jenny Willott: It is a complete
no-go?
Ms Dowd: It is unfair to try and
draw either of us on those comments when the investigation is
at such an early stage.
Q38 Jenny Willott: If it is clear
from the papers you are looking at that there are things that
could be investigated but there is nothing that is holding up
enough, that will affect how we see our decision about whether
or not to go further ahead. If it looks clear, and you are not
going to say obviously who or what the charges will be, that there
is a significant amount of evidence that could be used in a prosecution
that would hold up then that might alter our decision about how
to go ahead.
Ms Dowd: All I can pray in aid
is what DAC Yates has said that a number of issues need further
inquiry.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I am not ducking this issue. It is absolutely impossible to say
at this early stage of a criminal inquiry whether that evidence
is going to hold up in criminal court. We are relatively early
on in an inquiry, we have not seen a number of key people, and
we are keeping those people to the end in terms of the evidence
gathering process to be able to give us the best opportunity to
put that to them or ask them to account for certain issues. We
are so early in that process that to invite speculation about
whether document A would stand up in court and document B would
not is just impossible. I am not being obstructive.
Q39 Jenny Willott: That is not what
I am asking. I would not expect you to be able to answer that
so far in advance. For us to make a decision on this, just being
told that there are some issues that need further investigation
does not give us very much of a handle on what the actual situation
is or how prejudicial anything we might do could be.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I was rather hoping it would come across as a heavy hint.
Ms Dowd: It is impossible to predict
what is going to come out of the investigation at this stage.
We could not be drawn on what it might or might not amount to.
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