Unauthorised Disclosure of Heads of Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee - Standards and Privileges Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)

MR TOM SMITH

24 MARCH 2009

  Q1 Chairman: Good morning, Mr Smith. I think you know why this Committee is carrying out its inquiry: there was a leak by the DCMS Select Committee. The Liaison Committee resolved that this constituted a serious interference with the work of the Select Committee and they referred it to this Committee to make some enquiries. Perhaps I can start off. This is a question we put to witnesses in other inquiries: would you be content for this Committee to have access to your parliamentary e-mail account, to look at activity in February of this year?

  Mr Smith: Yes.

  Q2  Chairman: Thank you very much. Then why did you ask the CMS Committee staff to send you a copy of the draft Report on the BBC Commercial Operations?

  Mr Smith: There was an article in the Guardian—I think it is on 14 February—saying that the Report was due to be released before the end of the month. We were not originally aware of that and I asked Adrian about it. He said he had not seen any draft Report, and I do not think he was at the Committee session where they were discussing the draft Heads of Report, so he said to ask the Committee Clerks if anything had been done, so I e-mailed.

  Q3  Chairman: It was on his instructions that you approached the Committee Clerk for a copy?

  Mr Smith: Yes. He just said, "E-mail the Committee Clerks". He did not say, "Ask for a draft" specifically.

  Q4  Chairman: Would he not have had a copy of the draft Report as a member of the Committee?

  Mr Smith: Yes, but he was not aware of having received that. He was at home at the time.

  Q5  Chairman: This would have been the papers for the meeting at the end of January which would have been sent to him in hard copy?

  Mr Smith: Yes.

  Q6  Chairman: Are you saying he never got those?

  Mr Smith: He did get those, but we were thinking that, as a result of this Guardian article, maybe we had missed a further paper going round which may have been lost in the internal post, or something like that, because they had recently put over our papers to internal post delivery rather than by hand.

  Q7  Mr Llwyd: Good morning, Mr Smith. Could you tell the Committee, to whom did you forward the e-mail that you received from the CMS Committee Assistant on 23 February; and that, of course, had the Heads of Report attached to it?

  Mr Smith: I did not forward it to anyone at the time; it was only when the Committee Clerk approached Adrian saying there had been a leak Adrian asked me to forward the e-mail to him, and that is the only person I forwarded it to.

  Q8  Mr Llwyd: Could you tell us, who is the Liberal Democrat spokesman on DCMS?

  Mr Smith: Don Foster.

  Q9  Mr Llwyd: Mr Foster undoubtedly would be interested in this Report?

  Mr Smith: I would have thought so, yes.

  Q10  Mr Llwyd: Did you or anybody in your office pass this on to him or anybody in his office?

  Mr Smith: No.

  Q11  Mr Llwyd: Is that definitely, no?

  Mr Smith: I am definitely sure. I did not even open the Heads of Report when it was e-mailed to me.

  Q12  Mr Llwyd: Right, but did anybody else in your office have access to that Report?

  Mr Smith: Not that e-mail that I had, and it was never in paper form. Obviously the original Heads of Report were in paper form; but I am almost certainly sure that only I and Adrian had access to that, as well as obviously the rest of the Committee.

  Q13  Mr Llwyd: Do you work alone in your office or do you have anybody else?

  Mr Smith: I have a separate office from Adrian. I do have three interns but they are not aware of what I am doing on the select committee work, and they do not usually work on it at all.

  Q14  Mr Llwyd: Are you saying you did not pass it on to Mr Foster or his staff?

  Mr Smith: No, I did not even mention that I had had a new e-mail with Heads of Report to anyone, as the Committee Clerk said that Adrian had already received this in the e-mail and that there were no changes.

  Q15  Mr Barron: Do you know Mark Sweney, the Guardian correspondent?

  Mr Smith: No.

  Q16  Mr Barron: Have you ever been in contact with him at all on any matters in relation to the CMS inquiry?

  Mr Smith: No, I have never had any contact with him.

  Q17  Mr Barron: You never spoke to him at all?

  Mr Smith: No. I was not aware of his existence.

  Q18  Mr Barron: Do you have any knowledge if anybody else in the office has ever spoken to him? I do not mean Adrian, but any of these internees?

  Mr Smith: No, none of the interns; and I do not even think Adrian has ever spoken to him.

  Q19  Mr Soames: Mr Smith, are you saying to the Committee that the Report was already in paper form in circulation before you sent this e-mail?

  Mr Smith: The Heads of Report were originally in paper form and had been circulated to the Committee and to a number of other people on the Committee's distribution list—I do not know who they are. When I e-mailed the Clerks they e-mailed back with the attachment saying, "This is the Heads of Report which have already been circulated", so I did not do anything further with it.



 
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