Further supplementary memorandum submitted
by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (BW
47d)
Letter from Barry Gardiner MP, Minister
for Biodiversity, Landscape and Rural Affairs to the Chairman
of the British Waterways Sub-Committee
Thank you for your letter of 9 May 2007 requesting
notes of telephone calls and a full set of correspondence between
Defra and British Waterways since June 2006. I write to confirm
the Parliamentary Clerk's email of 15 May 2007 which I am happy
to expand on further.
Records of telephone conversations with British
Waterways and other partners—which as you can imagine are
frequent—are not as a matter of course kept. Occasional
notes may be taken where there is a specific action or outcome,
but this would normally be subsumed in follow up work.
As I made clear during my evidence to the committee
I am keen there should be as much transparency as possible. We
have sent you the exchanges we can find which are directly pertinent
to your inquiry. British Waterways have not identified any others
so far as we know. There is a large volume of email traffic over
the last year which we do not think would be productive for the
committee to wade through.
I would be happy to discuss this if you feel
that further clarification is needed.
6 June 2007
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