Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 280-299)
MR ADRIAN
SANDERS MP
19 MAY 2009
Q280 Mr Barron: What is your understanding
of the general nature of documents that you receive from the secretariat
of the Select Committee on email? This may be prior to a public
session that you are going to have asking questions of witnesses;
what is your understanding of those papers that you receive?
Mr Sanders: I tend not to pay
a great deal of attention to the ones that come on email because
I know that I am going to get a hard copy delivered to my office,
so I tend to read the hard copy. I do not like, unless I have
to, reading on a computer screen.
Q281 Mr Barron: Have you ever picked
up any hard copies that have had "in confidence" written
on them?
Mr Sanders: I am sure all of them
have "in confidence" written on them.
Q282 Mr Barron: And you say that
you do not know that members of your staff were receiving electronic
copies of these documents?
Mr Sanders: No, when you say members
of my staff—
Q283 Mr Barron: A member of your
staff. You say that you did not know he was receiving them?
Mr Sanders: No.
Q284 Mr Barron: What discussions
had you had with Mr Smith? You say you acknowledged a letter you
got from the Select Committee secretariat in January last year.
What discussions had you had with Mr Smith about confidentiality?
Mr Sanders: I had not had any
such discussion with him.
Q285 Mr Barron: What discussion did
you have with him in October of last year when you appointed him
to work in your office?
Mr Sanders: The normal standard
contract of employment and duties, and the duties that are written
down which have a confidentiality clause within them.
Q286 Mr Barron: Are you telling us
that you did not know he was receiving your Select Committee papers?
Mr Sanders: No, no, he was not
receiving my Select Committee papers. I was receiving my Select
Committee papers. I did not know he was also receiving Select
Committee papers. I am only aware that he received the Select
Committee paper that you are interested in.
Q287 Chairman: Before I ask Mr Llwyd
to come in, last time you gave evidence to us, Mr Barron asked
you a question to which you said: "I find it absolutely incredible
that the only reason I seem to be here is because my Parliamentary
Researcher did the job he is paid to do which is to keep an eye
on what is happening, and if something needs to be looked at,
actually informed me." Does not that imply that you knew
he was looking at these papers?
Mr Sanders: No, what that is referring
to is that he was looking at the Guardian and seeing a
report in the Guardian which was alerting him to the fact
that there is possibly (as it turned out there was not) a much
closer publication time for a report.
Q288 Chairman: That was not why you
were here. You were here because of the leak.
Mr Sanders: Which was subsequent
to—No, let us go back. That comment in answer to Mr Barron's
question was in relation to the fact that Tom had read a Guardian
article that had suggested that a Report which I ought to be aware
of was about to be published. As it turns out, that Report was
inaccurate. Nevertheless, he was doing his job properly in alerting
me to the fact that there was an article in the Guardian
that is telling us that there is going to be an imminent Report,
a Report that may be different from the original draft.
Q289 Mr Llwyd: In answer to Mr Dismore
on the last occasion you appeared before us, on 24 March, I will
just very briefly recap, you were asked if you asked him to get
it for you, ie the Report, and you said: "... he asked me
did I have a copy of the Report? I said, `No. Ask the Committee
Clerk.'" Then you go on to say: "`No I don't have a
copy. Go to the Clerk and get one.'" Then you say: "No,
he asked me, do I have a copy? `No I don't. Go to the Clerk and
get one.'" It was not you wanting a copy but him. Surely
that is not keeping confidential papers close to you, is it, if
you are saying to a researcher if he wants it go ahead and get
himself a copy and do what you will?
Mr Sanders: That is not quite
the way that the conversation occurred. Are you saying that you
should never let a member of your staff see a Committee Report
within your office?
Q290 Mr Llwyd: If you put the question
to me, if I had not briefed him about confidentiality, yes is
the answer to that one.
Mr Sanders: I think the briefing
about the confidentiality would have been at the start of the
process when he joined my office.
Chairman: Are there any more questions
to Mr Sanders?
Q291 Mr Dismore: Just to follow up
on that answer, if I may, Chairman. You are saying that you relied
on the briefing that Mr Smith had when he joined your office as
to confidentiality?
Mr Sanders: I am sorry, say that
again.
Q292 Mr Dismore: You are saying that
you relied on the briefing that Mr Smith had when he joined your
office as to the rules of confidentiality and that would be it?
Mr Sanders: Yes.
Q293 Mr Dismore: But on what basis
within that do you say that he had a specific briefing on Select
Committee papers?
Mr Sanders: He did not have a
specific briefing on Select Committee papers, no.
Q294 Chairman: Did you know that
a member of your staff was routinely forwarding these documents
to somebody else?
Mr Sanders: No, I did not.
Q295 Mr Barron: We were told earlier
by a previous witness that Mr Smith went to Don Foster's team
meetings.
Mr Sanders: Yes.
Q296 Mr Barron: Have you ever attended
any of these team meetings?
Mr Sanders: Not for many years,
no.
Q297 Mr Barron: You have in the past?
Mr Sanders: When I have not had
a researcher.
Q298 Mr Barron: What was your understanding
of what would be discussed by somebody who works for you as a
member of a select committee at team meetings that related to
the department that the select committee was overseeing?
Mr Sanders: I would have thought
that his purpose for being there would be to report back to me
any issues that may be helpful to me in my parliamentary activities.
Q299 Mr Barron: Did you not think
that there was any potential conflict, in effect, when in an earlier
session it was read out to you, so I will not read it again, that
you were telling this individual who worked for you to go and
talk to the clerk and to get information from the clerk? Did you
not put two and two together and think it may be that type of
information from the select committee clerk that would go along
to team meetings?
Mr Sanders: No, that had not occurred
to me.
| 
