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


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)

MR TOM SMITH

24 MARCH 2009

  Q20  Mr Soames: So you are saying that there are a large number of people who had already seen the Heads of Report before you got it?

  Mr Smith: Yes.

  Q21  Mr Soames: As an attachment to an e-mail?

  Mr Smith: Absolutely.

  Q22  Mr Soames: Secondly, can you tell the Committee if you have any idea why these papers should have been leaked?

  Mr Smith: I have no idea at all; I cannot say.

  Q23  Mr Soames: Are you much involved in your office in the affairs of this type?

  Mr Smith: No. Adrian does not need much doing on the Select Committee. I rarely look at the draft Reports or things like that, it is just the briefings for each evidence session I usually go through.

  Q24  Mr Soames: It is not your habit to talk to members of the press on matters concerning—

  Mr Smith: No, I do not deal with the national press at all.

  Q25  Mr Dismore: Can I just be sure about this: you did not print off any hard copies of the document at all?

  Mr Smith: No, and I did not even open the attachment, as the e-mail from the Clerk made it clear that Adrian had already received that. My enquiry as to whether there was a further draft Report that had been developed was obviously in the negative so there was nothing further I thought I should do.

  Q26  Mr Dismore: Did you forward the e-mail to Mr Sanders?

  Mr Smith: Only after he asked for it when the leak became apparent; I did not do that before. I told him verbally that there was not a further Report.

  Q27  Mr Dismore: Let me just ask you this: he asked you to get this in the first place?

  Mr Smith: He did not ask me to get that; he just asked me to ask the Clerks to clarify if a further Report had been developed or published at all.

  Q28  Mr Dismore: The e-mail exchange seems to suggest that you were asking for a copy. Is that wrong?

  Mr Smith: I am sorry, could you repeat that.

  Q29  Mr Dismore: The e-mail exchange that we have seen, 16 February, "Adrian is interested in seeing a draft of the BBC report, is there anything you can send to him?" That does not seem to tally with what you have just said?

  Mr Smith: That is not what Adrian's instructions were. I took that off my own bat.

  Q30  Mr Dismore: That is your interpretation of that?

  Mr Smith: Yes. He did not specifically ask for that. In that e-mail I asked if there was a draft Report if they could send it directly to him, but obviously the Clerk said she would send it to me.

  Q31  Mr Dismore: Where it says, "Adrian is interested in seeing a draft of the BBC report ..."?

  Mr Smith: Obviously if there was a Report that he had not seen he would be interested in seeing it.

  Q32  Mr Dismore: But that is not what he asked you to get?

  Mr Smith: No, I made that interpretation myself.

  Q33 Mr Dismore: Then it appears on your e-mail?

  Mr Smith: Yes.

  Q34  Mr Dismore: Although Mr Sanders is interested in it, you do not send it to him?

  Mr Smith: That is because there was no new Report. The Clerk said this is the original Heads of Report; they have already been circulated; there is no need to tell Adrian that there is something there that he has already seen.

  Q35  Mr Dismore: So why did you not delete it?

  Mr Smith: I have not deleted it; it is still in the mail box.

  Q36  Mr Dismore: Why did you not delete it? If it turns out there is nothing new in it, it is a confidential document—I presume you realised it was a confidential document?

  Mr Smith: Yes. No-one else has access to my e-mails.

  Q37  Mr Dismore: You were not planning to send it on to Mr Sanders?

  Mr Smith: No.

  Q38  Mr Dismore: Why did you not delete it?

  Mr Smith: I do not generally delete e-mails like that. I have never really thought about that.

  Q39  Mr Dismore: Can I put to you one little sequence. There is one detail in the Guardian report that is not in any of the circulated text, nor is it discussed at the 27 January meeting. The Guardian report suggests that the Committee was going to agree its Report at a meeting on Friday 6 March. That date occurs in only one place in all the documentation and e-mail traffic, and that is in the e-mail to you from the Committee Assistant on 23 February. It is clearly an erroneous date because the Committee was going to actually agree the Report on 12 March. The date appears on the Heads of Report saying it would be circulated on 6 March. That is the only place in any of the traffic or any of the correspondence that that date appears, and that is the date that appears in the Guardian article. Have you got any explanation of how that might have happened?

  Mr Smith: No. In the previous e-mail to me the Clerk made it clear that it was to be discussed at 12 March, and having previously looked at the Committee schedule there was a meeting on 12 March to discuss it. The 6 March date was obviously when it was going to be circulated in paper form to the Committee.



 
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