APPENDIX 7: MEMORANDA FROM THE DEPARTMENT
FOR TRANSPORT (continued)
11. LETTER TO THE CLERK FROM
THE DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT, 9 JANUARY 2006 [BYERS.27]
Thank you for your letters of 7 December and 20 December.
Your 7 December letter asked for a number of further
documents from early in 2001.
A copy of the paper prepared by Mr Carey in February
2001 setting out six options for Railtrack's future, which we
believe is the one referred to at paragraph 36 of the Judgement,
is attached as Flag A, along with a covering e-mail exchange between
Mr Carey and Mr Evans dated 22 February.[174]
These documents cover points 1 and 4 in your letter. There
is no record of Mr Carey's paper being specifically commissioned.
The documents requested at points 2 and 3 of your
letter - the e-mail of 5 February 2001 from Mr Kohli, Mr Kelmsley's
minute of 11 January to Mr Wheatley and Mr Kemsley's 14 March
submission to the Chancellor - are attached at flags B, C and
D respectively.[175]
Turning now to your 20 December letter and the question
of the annexes to the DTLR paper dated 3 August 2001, the copy
of this paper as sent by Mr Hackland to the Prime Minister which
we have, and which only came to this Department as part of the
disclosure exercise in the Railtrack case, does not include the
annexes. We have identified what we believe to be the annexes
and it is these that were attached to the letter of 13 December.
The labelling on the annexes sent to you does not correspond
to the labelling in the 3 August paper as the ordering of the
annexes changed as the paper was being drafted. Two of the annexes,
on Railtrack options and Railtrack finances, were sent to you
under Flag 2 of our letter of 7 November, as part of the e-mail
of 24 July 2001 from Mr Nevitt. This e-mail was sent to Dr Hackland
at No 10, as well as colleagues in DTLR and HM Treasury, as was
the e-mail circulating the annex on the 10 year plan targets.
I hope this clarifies the position for you.
The note on bondholders and revised note on Railtrack's
financial position were sent in response to your request for any
further information that was in the Secretary of State's briefing
pack for his Select Committee appearance on 14 November 2001.
In responding to this request, a check was made of the relevant
electronic and paper records and in doing so these notes were
identified. You will appreciate that there are a substantial
number of records to search - over 13,000 documents were disclosed
in preparation for the recent trial and there are some 38,000
e-mails that are potentially relevant. But notwithstanding this,
the notes on bondholders and Railtrack's financial position should
have been found earlier and sent to you in response your letter
of 17 November, for which I apologise.
In order to help the Committee, and to try to ensure
it has all the relevant material for which it has asked, we have
undertaken a further review of the extensive Whitehall documentation
relating to Railtrack. It remains the case, as we said in our
letter of 2 December that we can find no record of what was discussed
between the then Secretary of State and Shriti Vadera referred
to at paragraph 66 of the Court judgement. We have, however,
identified an internal Treasury e-mail which refers to the meeting,
which is attached at flag E.[176]
We have now also identified an e-mail from Mr Byers'
Private Office (flag F) which, refers to a briefing meeting on
8 November 2001, which was prior to the briefing meeting included
in the chronology which you already have, to discuss the handling
of both the Opposition Day debate and the Select Committee hearing.[177]
This e-mail set out a series of briefing requirements. The Committee
already has most of this material. But the e-mail has allowed
us to identify further additional brieifing material on third
party endorsements (flag G) and on the Railtrack court bundle
(flag H).[178] We
have not been able to identify any material supplied in response
to points 5 or 13 in the e-mail.
We have also managed to identify one further briefing
note clearly requested at very short notice on the day of the
Opposition Day debate itself (flag I).[179]
Finally, I confirm that in November 2001 Mr McMillan
was on temporary promotion to the post of Director, Rail Restructuring
(SCS Pay Band 2). His substantive grade was SCS pay band 1.
9 January 2006
174 Not printed (see list of unpublished memoranda). Back
175
Not printed (see list of unpublished memoranda). Back
176
Not printed (see list of unpublished memoranda). Back
177
Not printed (see list of unpublished memoranda). Back
178
Not printed (see list of unpublished memoranda). Back
179
Not printed (see list of unpublished memoranda). Back
| 
