Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-115)
MR ADRIAN
SANDERS MP
24 MARCH 2009
Q100 Mr Dismore: Your Assistant contacts
you. As a consequence of your discussion with your Assistant,
he sends an e-mail asking for a copy of the Report?
Mr Sanders: Yes.
Q101 Mr Dismore: Which then appears
as an attachment to an e-mail from the Committee staff?
Mr Sanders: Yes.
Q102 Mr Dismore: Which he does not
open?
Mr Sanders: Right. Yes.
Q103 Mr Dismore: Well, that is what
he told us.
Mr Sanders: Okay.
Q104 Mr Dismore: But he does not
send it to you either?
Mr Sanders: No.
Q105 Mr Dismore: What I am rather
confused about is why he went through this process in the first
place. Because if he has nothing to do with your Committee work
to speak of, which he has already told us, you did not really
want the copy of the Report; the Report then appears, apparently
as a consequence of your discussion with him (and I would personally
take that as a request, albeit maybe mildly); he does not send
it on to you; you do not ask for it and it just sits on his box
and he does not delete it—but what is the point of holding
a confidential document that you do not need; and the first time
it suddenly appears is after the leak, as far as you are concerned.
Does that not sound a bit peculiar?
Mr Sanders: No, I do not think
it does sound peculiar at all. I think it sounds peculiar if you
want to make it that way. I do not have a problem with it. I am
satisfied he had nothing to do with the leak. I know I
had nothing to do with the leak. The only person who knows about
the leak truthfully is the journalist.
Q106 Mr Dismore: Can I put another
sequence to you, another series. There is one detail in the Guardian
report that does not occur in any of the circulated text as discussed
at the 27 January meeting. The Guardian report suggests
that the Committee is going to agree its Report at a meeting on
Friday 6 March. Erroneously interpreted by the Guardian,
the only place that date appears is in the e-mail to Mr Smith
from the Committee staff saying that it will be circulated on
6 March.
Mr Sanders: So there is a Guardian
journalist that stupid that they would mistake—
Chairman: Mr Dismore, first finish your
question.
Q107 Mr Dismore: Let me finish the
question, please. I put the question again to you because this
is a very important one. The only place that the date of 6 March
appears is in the Guardian article which refers to the
Report being agreed on 6 March, and in the e-mail to your Researcher
which says it will be circulated on 6 March?
Mr Sanders: Yes.
Q108 Mr Dismore: A mistake that journalists
could make if that is the only date that they have in the way
that they have received this. This happens.
Mr Sanders: I am sorry—
Chairman: Mr Dismore, you are just coming
to the question.
Q109 Mr Dismore: Yes, I am trying
to make sure we understand what the question is, but I am afraid
the witness keeps interrupting me. Can I put the question to you
absolutely clearly because this is crucial: this 6 March date
appears in only one place in any of the documentation, which is
in the e-mail to your Researcher. Is there any explanation you
can offer as to how that date—the only place it appears—could
otherwise have appeared in the Guardian?
Mr Sanders: I think you are adding
two and two together here and making five. It is quite clear in
the e-mail that that date is the date it would be circulated,
not the date it would be discussed. A journalist, any journalist
who covers parliamentary affairs would know that select committees
would not meet on a Friday, would they not?
Q110 Mr Dismore: You would have thought
so, but the way the e-mail from Ms Macdonald reads is, "...
we won't be circulating the draft report until March 6th".
That could be taken erroneously, I agree, but by someone suggesting
that is the date it is going to be circulated more widely?
Mr Sanders: I am sorry, frankly,
that to my mind is odder even than the sequence of events you
have put to me.
Q111 Mr Dismore: Have you any idea
how the Guardian could have come to 6 March date?
Mr Sanders: Ask the journalist.
Q112 Chairman: We are in touch with
the journalist.
Mr Sanders: Good.
Chairman: Any more questions?
Q113 Mr Dismore: The last question
I would like to put to Mr Sanders is whether he stands by his
letter to the Chairman of this Committee of 27 February that you
know nothing about the leak and nor do your staff?
Mr Sanders: Absolutely. I know
nothing about the leak and I am satisfied my staff had nothing
to do with it.
Q114 Chairman: Are there any more
questions anyone wants to put to Mr Sanders? Is there anything
you want to say, Mr Sanders?
Mr Sanders: Yes, I do. In a sense
I am very angry about being here today. I have been a member of
select committees and been a Member of this House now for 11 going
on 12 years; I have never leaked anything; I think it is reprehensible
to leak things; and I do not understand why it is I am here on
such flimsy grounds as a journalist mistaking when a committee
is meeting with when a report is being circulated. I have more
faith in the Guardian, what little faith I have left in
it, to get little things like that correct.
Q115 Chairman: In response, this
Committee takes very seriously any leak by any select committee;
it is a very serious matter. We have a duty to follow up any evidence
that is put before us with a view to eliminating people from our
enquiries. We have had a series of questions and answers. Is there
anything else you would like to add?
Mr Sanders: What I would like
to know is what your timescale on this is. Obviously a cloud hands
over the whole Select Committee at the moment because of the suspicion,
and the sooner that is resolved the better for relations and the
working of that Committee.
Chairman: This Committee will dispose
of the matter as soon as it can. Thank you very much, that concludes
our interview.
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