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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