Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
TONY BALDRY
MP
19 JULY 2005
Q1 Chairman: Good morning, Mr Baldry.
The Committee has before it a memorandum submitted by the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards, investigating complaints against you.
I understand that you would like to make a statement before we
address that report, so we are anxious to hear what you have to
say.
Tony Baldry: Thank you, Sir George.
Can I say to the Committee the following: I have no quarrel with
the Commissioner's report. I have been given the opportunity to
explain my actions and that I have done. My explanations are there
for the Committee and anyone to see. The Commissioner has found
that in certain instances I got it wrong. No one is sorrier than
I for that. Insofar as I got it wrong, I should like to say to
the Committee and, through the Committee, to the House that I
am very sorry. I am grateful to the Commissioner for making it
clear that during the course of his inquiry there has been no
indication whatsoever of my seeking to exploit my position as
Chairman of the International Development Select Committee to
further my private interests. I am also grateful to the Commissioner
for making it clear that, on the evidence, he does not believe
that I set out to exploit my public position for personal advantage.
My letter to the Secretary of State was clearly very poorly written
as it has led to a number of misunderstandings and I have to accept
that, as I wrote the letter, the consequences of those misunderstandings
fall to me. I want to make it very clear that I would not in any
way at any time by either words or actions wish to mislead the
Secretary of State or any of the officials in DFID and I apologised
to Hilary Benn face to face back in April for anything that I
may have got wrong in my letter to him and I am confident that
the Secretary of State accepted that apology in the spirit in
which it was given. Although I am not chairing the Select Committee
in this Parliament, I intend to continue to take a close interest
in international development policy and this Committee can be
confident that, based on the experience of the last four months,
I will be extremely careful about separating my public role from
any private interests.
Chairman: Thank you very much. The Committee
may want to ask you some questions. Mr Dismore?
Q2 Mr Dismore: I would like to ask
you about your relationship with Dr Levy and how it came about.
We have got an account here. You fully accept that Dr Levy is
not one of your constituents. Is he a UK resident?
Tony Baldry: Firstly, I am very
happy to produce my diary to the Committee, but I do not suppose
there was a day, certainly no more than a couple of days, in the
last Parliament when I did not have people coming to see me about
problems relating to international development in one way or another,
NGOs, groups from overseas, or it might be people concerned about
the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda one day, an NGO concerned
with health the next. I was approached, as I think the evidence
makes clear, by Stuart Polak, whom I have known for many years,
who is Director of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He, I think,
had discovered from his office that I had a close knowledge of,
and close interest with, Sierra Leone and he asked me if I would
meet what I understood to be business colleagues and business
friends of his who had a problem with Sierra Leone. I am perfectly
happy always to meet people who have a problem and they had a
problem, they had a serious problem. If I can just put the test
like this, if this had not been a private company, if it had been
an NGO who had had similar experiences of having one of their
key people evicted from the country and another person being refused
entry clearance to the country, I think the House and colleagues
would feel it pretty churlish of me if I knew the country well
and I had not sought to help them, so that is what I sought to
do. It was clear to me when they came and saw me that they had
a real problem and most of my life, like most of the lives of
members of this Committee, is problem-solving and this was a problem
which I sought to solve.
Q3 Mr Dismore: That was not really
what I asked you though. I think there is a wealth of difference
between an NGO seeking general help in relation to the Lord's
Resistance Army or something in Uganda and somebody trying to
promote their business interests, but the point I come back to
again is that Dr Levy was not your constituent.
Tony Baldry: No, Dr Levy was not
a constituent.
Q4 Mr Dismore: Do you know whose
constituent he was?
Tony Baldry: No, and, as I say,
I sought to help him—
Q5 Mr Dismore: Did you make enquiries
as to whose constituent he was?
Tony Baldry: Can I just answer
the question? I sought to help him because I had a good working
knowledge of Sierra Leone. He had a problem relating to Sierra
Leone and I believed I could help him with that.
Q6 Mr Dismore: You have made that
quite clear, but I come back to the point about him not being
your constituent. Did you make enquiries as to whose constituent
he was?
Tony Baldry: No, I did not and
I would have to say that frequently during the last Parliament
I helped people and if I said to everyone who came to see me,
"Please go and see your own constituency Member of Parliament",
I think they would have thought I was being pretty churlish.
Q7 Mr Dismore: The question I was
going to come on to was whether, having decided to help Dr Levy,
you notified the constituency Member that in fact you were dealing
with one of his constituents which would, I would have thought,
be appropriate within the House of Commons protocol. Obviously
if you did make enquiries, presumably you notified the constituency
MP.
Tony Baldry: As I say, this was
a problem brought to me by someone I had known for a very long
time. They were clearly in considerable difficulties and time
was of the essence. Effectively they were not being able to operate
in Sierra Leone and it seemed to me a problem I was in a position
to help with and I sought to do so.
Q8 Mr Dismore: But that is not the
point I am putting to you, is it?
Tony Baldry: I understand the
point you are putting to me and I am saying, Mr Dismore, that
during the last Parliament I had large numbers of people on a
regular basis coming to see me and asking for help on various
matters. I think if I had simply said to them, "Look, your
concerns about Malawi or Ghana, I will take these up with your
own constituency Member of Parliament", I do not see this
as a problem in—
Q9 Mr Dismore: I think there is a
wealth of difference between an NGO coming to see you in your
capacity as Chairman of the International Development Committee
and a business contact. I know Mr Polak as well too, so obviously
throughout the time you would get together, but there is a wealth
of difference between him then coming to see you not in your capacity
as Chairman of the International Development Committee, but as
a result of your own private business interests in Sierra Leone.
Tony Baldry: No, he did not have
a knowledge of my own private business interests in Sierra Leone.
He knew that I have a good working knowledge of Sierra Leone.
My interests in Sierra Leone go across a whole number of areas.
Firstly, President Kabbah was a member of my Chambers, Desmond
de Silva, who was prosecuting the war crimes in Sierra Leone,
was my predecessor as head of Chambers, I spent a week in Bonthe
in Sierra Leone doing a dissertation for a university degree a
couple of years ago and I am involved with the NGO, Friends of
Africa, which does work in Sierra Leone and has funded community
projects and other projects in Sierra Leone, so my knowledge of
Sierra Leone spans a whole range of interests, not just commercial.
Q10 Mr Dismore: But, to come back
to the basic point, Dr Levy was introduced to you not as the Chair
of the International Development Committee, which is the capacity
that NGOs would come to seek your assistance in relation to matters
properly within the parameters of the Committee. Dr Levy was coming
to see you not as Chair of the International Development Committee,
but to seek help with his business interests in Sierra Leone,
a rather different kettle of fish, I would suggest.
Tony Baldry: No, I disagree. Dr
Levy and Mr Polak came to see me because they knew that I had
a good working knowledge of Sierra Leone. So far as I was concerned,
Milestone was a UK company in difficulties and I do not have,
and never had, any hesitation about seeking to help UK companies
having difficulties.
Q11 Mr Dismore: But you did not think
to notify the constituency MP?
Tony Baldry: I did not and I am
not actually quite sure in the circumstances of that whether it
would be the Member of Parliament where the company was based
or where he lived or whoever. This was a company which was actually
making considerable daily losses. They had invested millions of
pounds in Sierra Leone in equipment and for no particular, explicable
reason one of their senior people had been summarily taken from
his hotel and deported from the country and another person had
not been allowed entry clearance into the country. They were making
substantial daily losses and, as I say, if I had been in a position
to help and had not helped, I think colleagues would have considered
that to be pretty churlish.
Chairman: I think we have established that Mr
Baldry did not notify the constituency MP, so can we move on.
Q12 Mr Dismore: Can I move on to
paragraphs 54 and 76 of the Commissioner's report, which are different
aspects of the same thing. Basically your case is that you never
received dividends or director's fees from Red Eagle?
Tony Baldry: Yes.
Q13 Mr Dismore: When did you see
Red Eagle benefiting directly from this relationship with Milestone?
Tony Baldry: Well, as I have made
very clear to the Commissioner, when we got to the discussion
about the diagnostic centre some time after the first visit to
Freetown, there were various reasons why we were interested in
developing a relationship with Milestone. Firstly, they would
have almost certainly a permanent presence in the country and,
secondly, they had evinced an intention to invest in Sierra Leone.
At that time and continuing, we were involved in a fisheries project
in Sierra Leone, so we saw the potential of a long-term business
partnership. We are still pursuing the fisheries project and only
time will tell as we develop it to what extent Milestone would
wish to get involved in that, but other than the single payment
which was made to Red Eagle, we have received no other benefit,
direct or indirect, from Milestone as yet.
Q14 Mr Dismore: But if one looks
at the question, for example, of business goodwill or potential
capital value of the company, that presumably would be enhanced
by its relationship with Milestone?
Tony Baldry: Sorry, I did not
hear the question.
Q15 Mr Dismore: If one looks at the
wider context of where the company operates, would Red Eagle's
effective goodwill, contacts and potential capital value have
been enhanced by its relationship with Milestone?
Tony Baldry: To be honest, I am
genuinely not sure what the point is you are driving at.
Q16 Mr Dismore: Well, it is a straightforward
question. Is Red Eagle better placed in the Sierra Leone market
because of its relationship with Milestone?
Tony Baldry: No, I do not think
so. As you can see, Red Eagle has a perfectly good working relationship
with Sierra Leone. We have been, and we are, involved in a project
on fisheries and we are getting along with that project. I am
not sure that Milestone has as yet helped in any particular way
in that and, as I said, I think we saw in the longer term a benefit
for Red Eagle that Milestone would have a permanent presence in
the country, funding an office and so forth, and they had evinced
and shown that they were willing to invest in Sierra Leone and
practically no one else is investing in Sierra Leone.
Q17 Mr Dismore: So there was a prospective
benefit rather than one which has actually crystallised?
Tony Baldry: Yes, and obviously
there is a prospective benefit, so that there is no ambiguity
about this, Mr Dismore, there is a prospective benefit because
under the long-term participation agreement between Red Eagle
and Milestone, if Milestone should float, Red Eagle has the option
under that agreement to secure 3 per cent of the shares in Milestone.
Q18 Mr Dismore: When did you first
become aware of the prospective benefit from the relationship
with Milestone?
Tony Baldry: Well, I hope it is
all set out in the evidence, but let me go through it again for
you.
Q19 Mr Dismore: But the evidence
deals with actual benefits and I am asking you when you first
believed that there would be a prospective benefit from the relationship
with Milestone, which is not in the evidence?
Tony Baldry: I think in one of
his letters to me, Solomon Berewa, who was the Vice- President
and the High Commissioner, had been for a long time expressing
concern about the diagnostic centre, a project which had been
raised in the previous year. It was a matter of real concern to
them because when the UN withdraws from Freetown, there is not
a proper medical service in Freetown at the moment and the only
decent medical facilities are being provided by a Jordanian field
hospital attached to the United Nations and that is why Freetown
is an unaccompanied post and UK diplomatic staff cannot take their
wives or families to Freetown. At some stage it became clear that
Milestone were willing to invest in a diagnostic centre in Freetown
and at that stage I was due in any event to be going to Freetown
to talk about the fisheries project and take forward the fisheries
project. Indeed the dates for that had for a long time been in
my diary and the tickets had been bought. At that stage, I think,
we agreed to meet with the Milestone team in Freetown, which we
did. I think following that visit, we decided, both sides decided,
that there may well be some mutual benefit in participation in
a partnership and, from our perspective, what I think we saw in
Milestone, as I have explained, was that they were going to have
a permanent presence in Freetown, they had evinced an intention
to invest and, certainly in relation to the fisheries project,
they said that they could get the processing ship to bring to
the project and that seemed to us of real value. I am not sure
whether that is prospective value; it strikes me as being real
and immediate value to the company.
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