Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 139)
TUESDAY 6 DECEMBER 2005
MR DAN
CORRY
Q120 Angela Browning: Were you aware
that the Clerk of the Select Committee had notified the Department
of the areas of questioning that were likely to take place?[3]
Mr Corry: I might have been. It
may well have been if the Clerk had told the Department they might
have put a covering note in for Mr Byers saying "the Clerk
has informed us this is the vague range of questions" or
something. From my experience, the steers that the Clerk gives
are usually quite general.
Q121 Angela Browning: So would you
have been involved in advising Mr Byers on that aspect of his
appearance before the Committee?
Mr Corry: I doubt I would have
been much involved. This was obviously a very high profile issue.
To some extent obviously I have found before when a Secretary
of State is very focused on things that are going on, as Railtrack
was at the time, part of my job is to keep the rest of the show
on the road, as well as a lot of Railtrack issues still happening
then, so I probably would not. I can quite imagine there might
have been a sort of briefing meeting, where he would have gone
through a few issues and I probably would have been there.
Q122 Angela Browning: Who in the
Department decided who would attend that meeting? Did people just
volunteer? What was the modus operandi in that Department
as to who would attend occasions like that? You were there; was
that because you said I am going there?
Mr Corry: No, the private office
sorted it and probably asked me to be there. I think there would
probably be a standing invitation to those sorts of events but,
to be honest—sometimes those sorts of meetings happened
and sometimes they did not. Certainly I think Stephen Byers, like
other people I have worked for, is much more a reader than a meetings
person. He tends to read things himself. I am pretty sure there
would have been a meeting but I just do not recall it at all.
I suspect if there was and you can tell from the comment I made
on the transcript it seems like our obsession at the time (with
some good reason with everything that has happened) was about
exactly what was said on 25 July.
Q123 Angela Browning: Do you recall
at all why the Private Secretary was not present at that Select
Committee?
Mr Corry: I do not know. I think
David Hill was his Private Secretary at the time and if he was
not there he probably had a good reason. Usually a Private Secretary
will accompany a Secretary of State simply to get them from the
Department to here and so on and hold the bags so I would be surprised
if he was not.
Q124 Angela Browning: We know that
the senior Private Secretary was not present and normally it is
the senior Private Secretary that would be involved.
Mr Corry: Not quite true. It is
usually someone from the Private Office but it is not necessarily
the Principal Private Secretary.
Chairman: Mr Dismore?
Q125 Mr Dismore: To follow on from
Mrs Browning's questions, I have got in front of me the memorandum
from Mr Linnard delivered 13 November 2001 addressed to the Secretary
of State and you are one of the people copied in on it, which
sets out the subjects which the Select Committee was going to
raise, and the very first item is the events leading up to Railtrack
going into administration.[4]
Can we take it that you did read that memo or did you?
Mr Corry: Probably. I would at
least have skimmed it. I cannot promise to have read it.
Q126 Mr Dismore: As that was the
very first item on the list, do you not think that was something
you might have wanted to pay attention to when the transcript
came through?
Mr Corry: I am not sure. I now
know that I was at the hearing and the focus at the time was very,
very—there was a massive debate, as you probably recall,
about exactly who said what at the 25 July meeting. That was the
enormous dispute as to whether Railtrack had said it was running
out of money or not and how they had said it. That would have
been the focus I would have thought.
Q127 Mr Dismore: Could you repeat
how you would have answered the question?
Mr Corry: Let's see if I say it
the same way. I think I would have said that I had commissioned
some scoping work on the options.
Q128 Mr Dismore: Do you think that
was not that different from the answer that the Secretary of State
gave?
Mr Corry: Now the question was:
"Was there any work or discussions going on in the Department?"
or something.
Q129 Chairman: The question was:
"Was there any discussion, theoretical or otherwise, in your
Department before 25 July about the possibility of a future change
in status for Railtrack, whether nationalisation, the move into
a company limited by guarantee, or whatever?"[5]
Mr Corry: My answer to that would
have been there was some scoping work going on. That is what you
are trying to judge, is it not? Stephen Byers more or less to
that said no, did he not? Is that consistent with scoping work
going on? That is the issue, is it not?
Q130 Chairman: That is the issue
this Committee will have to resolve.
Mr Corry: He was not involved
in discussing options. He had asked people to go and do some work
in a group in the DTLR which was happening, which he knew about,
but which had not reported back to him or anything.
Q131 Mr Dismore: In your view, was
Mr Byers' answer wrong?
Mr Corry: I obviously did not
think it was wrong enough at the time to make anything of it,
clearly nor did officials, including officials who were on that
working group. In a sense I do not think it is for me to judge
whether it is right or wrong. Clearly I did not think it was wrong
enough at the time to make something of it.
Q132 Mr Dismore: Despite the meeting
with the Prime Minister you attended?
Mr Corry: Sorry.
Q133 Mr Dismore: Despite the meeting
with the Prime Minister, for example?
Mr Corry: There I do not remember
any particular discussion of any options at all. Again it was
just about there should be a group that goes away and does some
work. Actually that group was more or less already set up.
Q134 Mr Dismore: Okay I think you
said you were not involved in preparing the briefing for the Committee;
is that right?
Mr Corry: I would not normally
have been. Sometimes I would be asked before a select committee
are there any particular areas we need to commission briefing
for but, to be honest, usually officials did more of the briefing
than I did.
Q135 Mr Dismore: I presume from that
you were not involved in preparing the briefing for the Private
Notice Question?
Mr Corry: I certainly do not recall
it.
Q136 Mr Dismore: Or for the Opposition
Day debate?
Mr Corry: To be honest, I would
have to look it up, I cannot recall, I am not saying. For Opposition
debates we would often do a brief for the Parliamentary Labour
Party backbenchers on what the issues were and so on and so forth,
so I might have been involved in that.
Q137 Mr Dismore: You did not pick
this up when you read the transcript? Did you just skim the transcript
or did you read it in detail?
Mr Corry: I cannot recall the
transcript at all. I do know that I did give comments so I did
read at least some of it. My guess is that what I would have read
would be bits particularly about exactly what was said on 25 July
because that was already an enormous issue at the time and minutes
were being published in newspapers and all sorts of things.
Q138 Mr Dismore: You told us at the
Select Committee you were really there to gauge the mood. Can
we take it from that you were not really concentrating on the
evidence and the questions?
Mr Corry: I cannot recall the
event at all. I do not think I just come in, sit there and try
and gauge the mood and not listen to the debate. I am sure I would.
Q139 Mr Dismore: You told us your
job was not to mind the Secretary of State's back.
Mr Corry: Of course you do your
best to do it but the idea if you have a policy Special Adviser
like myself all you are doing is watching the Secretary of State's
back, no, that is not what I do most of the time. It is not what
I do now either, although it is obviously a part of it.
3 Flag 3 [not printed] to Memoranda from the Department
of Transport [Appendix 7]. Back
4
Flag 3 [not printed] to Memoranda from the Department of Transport
[Appendix 7]. Back
5
Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee, First
Report of Session 2001-02, HC 239-II, Ev 102, Q857. Back
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