Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
MR DON
TOUHIG AND
MR JONATHAN
IREMONGER
1 DECEMBER 2005
Q40 Chairman: You can see why this
might seem surprising. When the department has been engaged in
court cases, it has been the subject of an Ombudsman investigation,
all these papers have been trawled through endlessly, why, three
days before a select committee visit by a minister, is new material
suddenly discovered?
Mr Touhig: I said I cannot give
you any more information other than that is when it came to light.
My officials immediately came in to see me and said, "Look,
we have some doubts about statements that we have made in the
past concerning the eligibility criteria." For that reason,
we need to go back and research all this paperwork to discover
how this has come about. I cannot honestly say why this has just
happened but it was in preparing the brief for me that it was
discovered. It was discovered on Monday. I put this work in hand.
I spoke to you on Tuesday. It was coincidence that I was coming
here, but this is the brief I had for coming here, which makes
no reference to these matters at all. You can see there is a tome
and a half here, so the preparatory work was done for me to come
and state the position as I believed it to be until lunchtime
on Monday. The position is not probably that case now, and that
is why I have set this work in train. That is why we are in this
situation.
Q41 Chairman: When the Ombudsman
made her report in July, one of her recommendations, which the
Government rejected, was that there should be a review of how
the scheme has been handled. The Ministry rejected that recommendation.
Mr Touhig: Yes.
Q42 Chairman: Now you are doing a
review?
Mr Touhig: The most perfect view
is always the one looking back. We all say "what if"
and "if only". At the time when we rejected the Ombudsman's
recommendation, we believed there was no justification for a further
detailed review. It was only on Monday when it came to light that
there could be a discrepancy between criteria applied before the
birth link was introduced and criteria we have been applying since
that caused me to say that we cannot go ahead with the simple
evidence I was going to give you today; we have got to investigate
this. It is important so far as the issue of the Ombudsman's report
is concerned but, more importantly, I think it impacts upon people
who have suffered enough at the time when they were interned in
that awful period but who have also suffered great stress as a
result of the way we have actually announced and implemented this
scheme, leading them to believe that they would get compensation
and they are not. I would just add one further thing which I take
from the Ombudsman's report and that is concerning Professor Hayward.
The Ombudsman makes a very important point: it was not the money
issue that concerned Professor Hayward; it was the way he felt
he was being thought of as a second-class British citizen or "not
British enough". My colleagues here from Wales will know
that I have been very involved in a miners' compensation issue
recently. All the people I have been talking to have been concerned
about receiving recognition for their suffering; it has not been
the cash at the end of the day. I do not doubt that is the objective,
that is the desire, of those people who are seeking to be included
in this compensation scheme now.
Q43 Chairman: Just on that point,
we asked Professor Hayward just before you came in what he would
like to ask you. What he said, of course, was very much what you
have just said, which is that he would want to know, as he thought
you would want to know if it was you or we as Members of Parliament,
why suddenly, after a lifetime of being British, you were told
that you were not British enough. Here is a man who, yes, was
interned in Shanghai, came here, was educated here, became one
of the most distinguished political scientists in the whole country,
laden with honours, did national service in the RAF, and then
was told that he was not British enough.
Mr Touhig: We did not say he was
not British enough. I fully understand that is his view of things.
In truth to you, if I were in his situation, that would be my
reaction, too. Any human being would have that sort of reaction.
However, as you will be aware from the inquiries you have already
made and perhaps the evidence already given, when the scheme was
introduced there was a question about our responsibility to people
who could demonstrate they were certainly British at the time
of their internment. I think it has been very difficult to draw
a line but a line has been drawn. As I have said in my statement,
every scheme has to have rules and some people are included and
some will be excluded. I cannot say, and I would not wish to raise
anybody's hopes, that as a result of this inquiry that I have
now instigated there will be any significant change to this scheme,
but I will tell you now that I would not rule anything in or out
until I have that information.
Q44 Chairman: Of course I am glad
that you are going to review this. We shall probably ask you to
come back to see us when you have reviewed this. You have said
you are going to tell Parliament. Of course, in saying that, you
are going to raise expectations again that in fact the kind of
scheme that was announced originally with the criteria originally
announced in November 2000 is finally going to be the outcome
of this review. When that scheme was announced in November 2000
and the eligibility was described, anyone listening to that would
simply have assumed that someone like Professor Hayward would
have been a beneficiary of it, would they not?
Mr Touhig: Yes, I believe they
would. I do not deny that at all. I do not think we have ever
denied that in terms of saying that people's expectations were
raised. They were raised incorrectly; they were raised as a result
of actions we took as a department.
Q45 Chairman: People believed what
the Government said.
Mr Touhig: Yes, and the impression
that was given was that if you were British, you qualified for
this compensation scheme. At the time of the conflict, of course
a great deal of the world, in quotes, was British; it was part
of the Empire.
Q46 Chairman: There was no blood
link discussion at that time when the scheme was announced. It
was pretty straightforward who was going to be eligible for it.
Mr Touhig: The impression that
was conveyed and the understanding I think of most people was
that if you were British you would qualify under this scheme.
We failed, as the Ombudsman points out I think in the report,
to get that clarification in place at the right time.
Q47 Chairman: It is not just the
Ombudsman. I read earlier on in this memorandum from Mr Burnham
who is the sort of ghost at the feast and not able to be with
us—
Mr Touhig: Mr Burnham is doing
a very good job at the moment trying to get me this information
I need.
Q48 Chairman: I am sure he is well
deployed reviewing all this at high speed and at the last minute.
Mr Touhig: It is not high speed
and last minute. I do not know what I have to say to you to convince
you that this only came to my attention, my officials' attention,
on Monday. There is no great conspiracy. It is more a cock-up
than a conspiracy. This only came to my attention on Monday and
my officials' attention, and we are taking immediate action to
try to get to the bottom of it.
Q49 Chairman: Our friend Mr Burnham
was writing this memorandum on 10 April 2001 pointing out the
problems with any move to a bloodlink criterion, having announced
the scheme previously. He says in this memorandum: "Despite
previous concerns at expansion of the eligibility, we are now
firmly of the belief that the evidence of individual cases suggests
that the present stance will be impossible to defend on ground
of fairness and logic. It does not seem that rejection of these
cases will be in keeping with the original intent and spirit of
the scheme." So Mr Burnham himself had identified the problems
that were going to arise from moving to this blood link criterion.
You can see that here we are in December 2005 and Mr Burnham in
April 2001 was trying to explain the problems with what the Government
was doing.
Mr Touhig: The agency had signed
up to the criteria we were applying some weeks before that memorandum
was written. This does show a degree of conflict. Again, this
will figure in part of my better understanding in the work I have
commissioned as to why, in this particular case, this matter was
raised and no action was taken. I have fully to appreciate and
understand that. I am in no way dodging any responsibility. I
was not on the scene at that time but I am the Minister responsible.
I take full and personal responsibility for all that happens in
the department in the past and at the present time. I have to
answer to Parliament and to you for my actions. All I am saying
to the committee is: please give me a few weeks to delve into
these matters. Your questions are perfectly proper and we must
answer your questions, but it will take me some time to get to
the bottom of why this memo was written, why no further action
was taken, and why this has come to my attention now at this late
stage.
Q50 Chairman: Is it the case that,
as a result of this review that you are now doing, there is at
least a possibility that what Mr Burnham was telling you in April
2001 will be reverted to and that the kind of scheme that was
originally announced in November 2000 will be the one that is
now applied?
Mr Touhig: I wish I could travel
down that road with you at the moment and say "yes"
but I cannot and I do not—on the point you made earlier,
Chairman—want to raise anyone's hopes falsely that we can
re-visit the scheme at all.
Q51 Chairman: I was only asking if
it was a possibility that that would be the outcome?
Mr Touhig: It will be part of
my consideration when I get all this information in. That will
be analysed and I will get reasons for why no action was taken
on it at that time. Anything that comes to my attention that impacts
on the future of the building of the scheme will be under consideration.
Q52 Chairman: Do you feel uncomfortable
that this is only the third time in the history of the Ombudsman's
office over nearly 40 years that she has had to come to Parliament
with a special report because a government department has not
taken on board what she has recommended?
Mr Touhig: No, I do not feel uncomfortable.
The Ombudsman has done a perfectly proper job, as far as I am
concerned. We have a disagreement about some of the outcomes.
That is perfectly proper. If we have a disagreement, it is right
that we should state that. We would not expect the Ombudsman to
roll over if we had some dispute about something she was saying,
any more than she would want us to do so. She has made perfectly
important and proper points. We disagree with some of them. It
is no embarrassment to me if I believe that our reasons for rejecting
her recommendations are proper. All this will come out in the
rinse when I get this further report.
Q53 Chairman: The reason I ask that
is that it is not a question of picking and choosing amongst Ombudsmen
reports, those that you like or those that you do not like. If
you look at the Government's official position, and this is written
up in the Cabinet Office document The Ombudsman in your Files,
it says that we shall accept Ombudsmen recommendations. I put
it to you that you ought to feel uncomfortable on those extremely
rare occasions, three times only in nearly 40 years, when you
do not accept what the Ombudsman says, particularly when now you
are telling us that you are doing the thing which the Ombudsman
recommended, which was to go back and review the files.
Mr Touhig: No, we are not doing
precisely what the Ombudsman asked. We are trying to get to the
bottom of why this information has now been arrived at in the
way it is arrived at. No, I do not feel uncomfortable. I feel
the Ombudsman has acted perfectly properly in bringing these matters
to everybody's attention and it is perfectly right for any department,
if it feels that it is in dispute with the conclusions made in
a report, to say so.
Q54 Kelvin Hopkins: About Mr Burnham
first of all, and perhaps I have a suspicious mind, and he is
not here today, but if he is doing a review which would take two
or three weeks, taking half a day out to be at this select committee
this morning surely would have been helpful to his review because
he would have teased out some of the issues in our discussion?
Mr Touhig: I think it is more
important, frankly, that he is doing the work that I have asked
him to do now because I want to get this information to you, to
Parliament and to the people concerned as quickly as possible.
I do take the point; it does seem a small period of time out of
the timespan it would take him to prepare the report, but I have
to make a judgment on priorities, and my priority is getting the
answers to the questions I have asked. That is what I have tasked
him to do. There is no disrespect to you or the committee. I just
think it is important.
Q55 Kelvin Hopkins: It looks suspiciously
like he is hiding in his office.
Mr Touhig: He is not hiding in
his office at all. He is doing the work that I have asked him
to do. I would hope from me you would take that as an honest and
straightforward answer.
Q56 Kelvin Hopkins: The next issue:
you said you rule nothing in and nothing out in the conclusions
of this review, and yet in subsequent comments you said that expectations
were raised incorrectly. That sort of implied that this review
is just going to be another explanation as to why the Government
is not going to change its mind.
Mr Touhig: No, that is not the
purpose. The purpose of this review is to establish whether or
not we used common criteria before and after the birth link, whether
we had the right information on that, the impact of all that upon
the scheme, so you can better understand why I simply could not
come here—and I do not mean that in a throw-away way—and
answer all your questions this morning. That was my intention.
There is my brief for that. It is because this came to light on
Monday and that I asked the Chairman if he would consider postponing
this meeting so that I could get all the information and come
and present you with all the information. I fully understand his
reasons for declining that, but I will come back and give you
all the information I turn out in this root and branch examination
as to why we are in this position and why we might have given
the impression in statements and other remarks in the past that
there was a consistency in the criteria right across this whole
scheme.
Q57 Kelvin Hopkins: So it is possible
that the review could come to a conclusion that a grotesque mistake
has been made, that this is gross injustice, and that the Government
was wrong and they have apologised, and that all these citizens
are going to be regarded for the future as equal citizens with
every other British citizen?
Mr Touhig: I am not going to anticipate
what might come of this. It may be, as a result of this review,
that I have to go to the Secretary of State and say that the whole
scheme ought to be examined again. I do not know that and I do
not honestly in truth want to raise anybody's hopes that that
is what I will do. I do not have all the facts at the moment,
Kelvin. Until I have all the facts, it is extremely difficult.
I appreciate that makes life hard for you, but you will appreciate
that I am trying to be as helpful as I can, but I do not have
all the facts at the moment to be able to say that there would
be any significant change or no change of any kind whatsoever.
Q58 Kelvin Hopkins: About one-third
of British citizens in my constituency may not in future consider
themselves to be equal British citizens with others because one-third
of them possibly do not qualify according to these criteria, bloodlines
and whatever? They come from all parts of the world but they are
British citizens. How am I going to go to this particular citizen
in my constituency, who was a doctor, a British citizen working
at a British military hospital and looking after British service
personnel in Hong Kong, who was then interned, when he came out
he spent the rest of his life working in the National Health Service
as a doctor in a hospital from 1948 until he retired, but has
since been told, after all of that, he is actually not quite as
good a British citizen as other British citizens and therefore
he will not get his £10,000. Not that the money is the principal
concern; it is the fact that he has been told in effect that he
is not quite up to full British citizenship. Is that not grotesque?
Mr Touhig: We have never said
that and I think that is grotesque from his circumstances, but
I can perfectly understand, as I said with Professor Hayward,
that this is a feeling people would have. I would have the same
feelings if I were in such circumstances. However, as I said earlier
on, any scheme has to have guidelines, parameters, rules, and
we have implemented the rule concerning birth link. That means
some people were included in the scheme and some were not. To
a lot of people that is unfair and unjust along the lines you
have mentioned, and you have stated it very eloquently in your
point just a moment ago. That is the scheme that we have got and
that is the one that is operating at the present time.
Q59 Kelvin Hopkins: I do not think
I am alone in feeling that this is a disgraceful decision by our
Government of which I personally am heartily ashamed. Will you
be able to come back in three weeks and reassure me that I no
longer need to feel this shame?
Mr Touhig: I am proud of this
Government. I feel nothing to be ashamed about a government that
has changed the face of our country after some very difficult
years when we were in opposition. I would say this to you: I cannot
give you a firm undertaking that I can come and give you the answer
you want in a few weeks' time. I am telling you that I have an
open mind about it. I am not saying we will not or cannot or should
not change anything. I just do not know at this stage, and you
will have to forgive me that I cannot be more explicit, but I
have to get this information so that I can make a better judgment.
One of the problems we have had, and I am sure you recognise it,
the Ombudsman certainly recognises it, is about the speed with
which this scheme was introduced, perfectly properly in the sense
that people recognise the suffering that had gone on and that
people who have suffered are getting older. We wanted as a country
to give some tangible recognition to that suffering. The scheme
was introduced at such a pace, perhaps before all the criteria
had been properly worked out, and that is why we are in the problem
we are in today. I do not want to have that mark 2; I want to
try to get it right this time round.
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