Examination of Witnesses (Questions 116
- 119)
THURSDAY 15 DECEMBER 2005
SIR CHRISTOPHER
MEYER KCMG
Q116 Chairman: Let us continue our
session by welcoming Sir Christopher Meyer to tell us about his
book-writing experience. This is like a stop on your book tour,
is it not? We are grateful to have you along. Do you want to say
anything by way of introduction?
Sir Christopher Meyer: Chairman,
thank you very much for allowing me to take part in these proceedings.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to your review
of political memoirs. I do not want to test your patience or that
of the Committee too much, but I have about a minute's worth of
comments I would like to say before you interrogate me, if I may
do so.
Q117 Chairman: Yes, of course.
Sir Christopher Meyer: First of
all, I do very much hope that by the time you have dealt with
me I will have had the opportunity to respond reasonably fully
to the Foreign Secretary's written answer to Mr Prentice of 28
November with particular reference, first, to what I consider
to be the false inference that I delayed submitting my manuscript
to the Cabinet Office until the last minute and, second, to the
accusations which I reject of breach of trust and confidence.
These latter, I believe, place a number of question marks over
the process of clearance through which my book had just passed.
Secondly, I would also like to say something straight away, if
I may, in my capacity as Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission.
After my publishers' correspondence with the Cabinet Office, it
is fair to say that I did not expect the strength of reaction
which the book has aroused, including criticism directed at my
role as Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission. I have been
gratified and sustained by the many expressions of support which
I have received from a variety of quarters, but I accept that
the situation has given rise to concerns and to embarrassment
to some of my friends and colleagues, including at the PCC. I
have already expressed my sincere regret to this and I am happy
to do so again today. Members of the Press Complaints Commission
have met to discuss this criticism and they have agreed to work
with me to strengthen further public confidence in our work. As
an immediate step, the PCC has decided to review the rules and
procedures relating to potential conflicts of interest incurred
either by the Chairman, commissioners or the secretariat, so as
to ensure that they are robust and transparent. The outcome of
this review, although I cannot tell you when it will be, will
of course be made public and the Commission will of course consider
any recommendations which this Committee chooses to make in this
respect. I would lastly like to say that I remain deeply committed
to the importance of successful self-regulation of the press and
to the independence of the Press Complaints Commission. As Chairman
I will spare no effort in ensuring the continued achievement of
these goals. Thank you.
Q118 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Could I start by asking you how all this started. In the preface
to your book, you say that you were sitting down one evening in
the South of France, you had had a drink and you were talking
about all the great stories that you were engaged in and so on,
and then your wife said, "Why don't you write all this down."
I was then expecting to read a bit which said, "I'm sorry,
dear, I can't do that because I am a public servant. We don't
do that kind of thing. The regulations that I live under forbid
it anyway." There is no mention in your book at all of any
considerations about the act of publication. You do not wrestle
with it, you do not do the balancing. You just ignore it, as though
there is no issue at all about it. You must have realised since
you published it that that was a conversation that you never had
that you perhaps ought to have had.
Sir Christopher Meyer: Chairman,
if I may respond to that. It is chapter 5 of the Diplomatic Service
Regulations that deal with the issues of publication. They deal
also with interviews, speeches, lectures, press appearances and
books and articles. DSR5 (which is what we call it in short) covers
all of those. Those rules, either for people in service or for
people who have retired, do not forbid the publication of books.
They permit the publication of books under certain circumstances,
the most important of which is that the manuscript should be submitted
to the authorities for them to clear or not as the case may be.
You have some of the details slightly wrong about the banal beginning
to this book, but the fact of the matter is when I started down
this path I realised that somewhere at the end of it it would
have to go to the Cabinet Office or to the Foreign Office as the
rules provide.
Q119 Chairman: I have not got it
wrong about the book. I do not want to advertise it too much but
I enjoyed the preface greatly, where your wife encouraged you
to do this and then you got the novelist to help you with making
it more racy, but what there was a complete absence of was any
consideration of whether this was the proper thing to do or not.
And you cite all these regulations. I have read them. They could
not be clearer. "You should not enter into any commitment
with publishers before authority to publish is obtained for any
book or article for which authority is required under paragraph
7 above." You did not do that.
Sir Christopher Meyer: Let me
take that point head on, Chairman. The fact of the matter is that
the Foreign Office applies those rules in one way for the service
and in another way for those who have retired. It is a matter
of custom and practice. That is what they do. If I can just set
some context here: for example, when I returned from Washington
at the beginning of March 2003, I went and paid my farewell call
on the Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Michael Jay, and I said to
him, "I have been offered a contract to comment on the Iraq
war on Channel 4 television and on ABC Television." Those
appearances are captured by the same set of rules in DSR5 as are
books. His only reaction was to say, "If you need any help
with briefing, give me a call." Now—as I say, I am
setting context here—two and a half years later, whatever
it is, two years and 10 months later, I have given speeches, given
lectures, I have done goodness knows how many interviews, so on
and so forth, and at no stage in this period has the Foreign Office
said to me—and I have talked to people in the Foreign Office,
in fact, to get briefing—at no stage in this period has
anybody said to me, "Before you do Channel 4" or "Before
you lecture the Ministry of Defence"—"Before you
do this or before you do that"—"you must consult
us first." This has not happened. Of course, the Foreign
Office I think in this is very sensible: it makes a pragmatic
distinction between people in service and people who have retired.
I would hope, for example, that one recommendation that will emerge
from this Committee—and I do not know whether this should
apply to the Civil Service as a whole but it certainly should
apply to the Diplomatic Service—is that the rules should
be revised to make a practical distinction, where sensible, between
those in service and those outside it.
|
