Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 155)
TUESDAY 6 DECEMBER 2005
MR DAN
CORRY
Q140 Mr Dismore: If it was not yours,
whose job was it?
Mr Corry: Partly the Secretary
of State's to watch his own back and so on.
Q141 Mr Dismore: Bearing in mind
it is such a huge job being a Secretary of State of any Department,
whose job was it?
Mr Corry: Lots of people are trying
to watch their back. I do not recall the events at all but had
I thought he had said something that was horrendously wrong then
clearly I would have said something to him. I clearly did not
think that and clearly nor did the officials who were present
and read the transcript afterwards. Why that happened is a good
question but that is clearly what happened from everything I have
seen.
Q142 Dr Whitehead: Was that the first
time that the Secretary of State had been in front of the Transport
Sub-Committee?
Mr Corry: I am afraid I do not
remember. I would be surprised if it was the first.
Q143 Chairman: I think it was.
Mr Corry: Right.
Q144 Dr Whitehead: So that might
have been regarded as quite an auspicious occasion in as much
as the new Secretary of State going to the Transport Sub-Committee
with a redoubtable Chair—
Mr Dismore: Formidable Chair!
Dr Whitehead: Indeed, a formidable chair,
and discussing issues of very considerable moment?
Mr Corry: I think there was a
lot happening around then that probably all had the phrase "of
considerable moment" around them. I cannot recall, I am sure
you have got these timetables around, but I think there were statements
in the House about Railtrack, there were all sorts of things.
It was a very tense and stressful period. So there were a lot
of things like that happening and I am sure that certainly Stephen
Byers would have taken the whole thing incredibly seriously. It
was a good Select Committee so he knew he was going to have a
good run through the issues as well.
Q145 Dr Whitehead: As I imagine the
officials and so on would have done because of the significance
of it being the first Sub-Committee appearance?.
Mr Corry: I think officials always
try and do a good briefing for the Secretary of State before select
committees and I think the biggest problem you have is they tend
to overdo it. They give you so much stuff you cannot possibly
read or ever use it. You just use the core stuff and the core
stuff I think at the time was around that 25 July issue. I do
not know if you have got copies of the briefing. My guess is there
is quite a lot about that in the briefing because that is what
we were being grilled about a lot and that is what the media were
obsessed about.
Q146 Dr Whitehead: And you clearly
accompanied your Secretary of State when you were Special Adviser
in your previous post prior to—
Mr Corry: The DTI?
Q147 Dr Whitehead: Prior to accompanying
him to Transport.
Mr Corry: Yes, sometimes.
Q148 Dr Whitehead: DTLR as it then
was. Could you make any comparison between the sort of preparation
and the material that you would have received prior to select
committee appearances at the DTI and the briefing that would have
come your way at least for a skim as far as the Department for
Transport was concerned?
Mr Corry: It is an interesting
question. I did not notice in changing departments that suddenly
the briefing on parliamentary debates or anything was significantly
worse, or anything like that. In general, though, Ministers appearing
before select committees or a debate in the House in the end have
to take control of it to some degree. Officials do not really
know what these things are like or what the focus is going to
be. They tend to give a vast amount of information which is not
that focused. Sometimes a briefing drives Ministers up the wall.
They get all this stuff, loads of it, and none of it has got the
stuff that matters in it. I think that is true across all departments.
I could say that when I was a civil servant before, I am sure
I drove Ministers up the wall.
Q149 Dr Whitehead: Bearing in mind
your experience of preparing briefings for your Secretary of State
at the DTI, would you have noticed that the briefing on this occasion
was a joint briefing for an Opposition day debate and a select
committee hearing[6]
and would you have remarked that might have been a bit strange?
Mr Corry: I do not think so. The
key thing would have been did it cover the key issues. That was
the important point.
Q150 Dr Whitehead: When you had indeed
sat in on the Sub-Committee and the hearing had finished, presumably
you arrived at the Committee in the Minister's car and then you
went back over to the Department in the Minister's car? I would
imagine that was the case?
Mr Corry: I do not know. Often
Ministers when they have done select committees in my experience
do not go back to the department straightaway, they go and have
a cup of tea in the House with fellow MPs, or something like that.
In terms of coming over I did not always come with Stephen Byers
and I do not always now.
Q151 Dr Whitehead: You do not recall
whether there was any wash-up session after the hearing informally
or formally where you would have discussed what the questions
were and what the answers were and how the meeting had gone?
Mr Corry: No, to be honest, in
my experience that does not usually happen with Secretaries of
State. Sometimes you are outside in the corridor and you might
say "that went alright" or "that was pretty awful"
or something like that, but I do not really remember anyone I
have worked with then wanting to go through all the questions
and how did they do on that.
Q152 Chairman: Could I just put one
or two final questions. We know from the papers that the DTLR,
Number 10 and the Treasury set up a Rail Review Group before July
25 on which you sat. Would you have kept your Secretary of State
roughly in the picture as to what that group was doing?
Mr Corry: Very roughly. I am trying
to remember this because I think we only had a couple of these
meetings and they had big papers that had all the options, they
were classic Civil Service papers really. I think probably I would
have just told Stephen Byers that we were meeting and at some
point he would get a paper.
Q153 Chairman: So he would have known?
Mr Corry: I mean, as you know
from the trial and so on and obviously the outcome of the trial,
to be honest, from my perspective and the leads I had been given
by Stephen Byers, I was not really taking a lot of this vastly
seriously as if we were imminently about to do anything. They
were really for background on what were the options they could
do if they ever wanted to do anything. So he was not saying to
me what is happening in this group? I had been involved in lots
of groups like that before in the DTI where we often produced
a paper and nothing ever happened.
Q154 Chairman: Then your Secretary
of State was reported in the Financial Times as saying
he "was considering a range of ideas for the longer term.
Renationalisation appears to have been ruled out, but there were
many other options."[7]
That comment was attributed to Department of Transport officials.
Does that ring true?
Mr Corry: Sorry, what date was
that?
Q155 Chairman: This is in June 2001,
25 June, he was reported as considering a range of options having
ruled out renationalisation but considering other ones. Does that
ring true?
Mr Corry: Not really. The key
thing he wanted to do, there was a feeling that the different
players in rail were pulling different ways and he wanted to get
them all lined up facing the same way to have a period of stability.
The advice from officials was the April agreement had only just
been signed and things were okay but in the medium term we might
have to do something. We had Cullen coming up. To the extent there
was any discussion even in the working group, to be honest, it
was more about doing something about regulation and the dysfunction
that some people thought between the Office of the Rail Regulator
and the SRA.
Chairman: Unless colleagues have any
final questions, thank you, Mr Corry.
6 Flag 3 [not printed] to Memoranda from the Department
of Transport [Appendix 7]. Back
7
Enclosure 4 to Memorandum from Tom Winsor [Appendix 6]. Back
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