Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
216-219)
DR MALCOLM
JACK, MS
JACQY SHARPE,
MR MICHAEL
CARPENTER AND
MS VERONICA
DALY
9 NOVEMBER 2009
Q216 Chairman: Good afternoon Dr Jack,
Mr Carpenter, Ms Sharpe and Ms Daly. Thank you very much for attending
upon the Committee. I think you are aware of our terms of reference
and the purpose of our meeting. There are two preliminary matters
but first perhaps I might address you Dr Jack. You very helpfully
provided a memorandum in your capacity as Clerk of the House and
today we are more concerned about questions of fact surrounding
the issues we are discussing. It may be that we shall ask you
to come back on a later date to speak in more detail to the memorandum
which raises issues of principle and matters affecting the whole
doctrine of privilege. The second preliminary point is that I
imagine you will be aware of the evidence given by Lord Martin
of Springburn to the Committee last week and I hope you have had
the opportunity of seeing the uncorrected transcript. I thought
at this stage I should, in view of some of the contents of that
evidence, give you the opportunity to say if there are any parts
of it with which you particularly take issue. We have a number
of questions to ask you and some of these matters will be raised
in the course of that questioning but if at the outset there is
any particular part of his evidence about which you wish to express
a different view, then it might be appropriate to allow you that
opportunity at the moment. In particular I should say that there
was a passage of evidence in connection with the meeting on 2
December in which Lord Martin of Springburn gave us his recollection
of an intervention which he attributed to you. That in particular
is an issue about which the Committee would very much like to
know what your response is.
Dr Jack: Thank you very much first
of all for inviting us here this afternoon. I am quite happy to
take the questions first on this point you have just raised and
then see where we are at the end of that. If I feel I want to
add something, perhaps I could, with the Committee's permission.
I wonder also whether I could just say one other thing as a preliminary.
I do not have anything substantive to add to the memorandum which
I have sent in and to which you have already referred but I would
like to put something on the record because this is the first
opportunity I have had to say anything in public. As head of the
House service I would like to say that I am sorry that this matter
was not better handled. I think I ought to put that on record.
I hope the Committee will accept that apology. In accepting the
apology, I hope the Committee will also accept from me, and I
am sure that many Members here will recognise what I am going
to say, that the staff here are very loyal; loyalty is one of
the main characteristics of the House staff. They act, to the
best of their abilities in good faith and impartially. I just
thought I ought to put that on the record as the head of the service
but I make the apology without reservation.
Q217 Chairman: Some of our questions
will touch upon the handling of this matter and perhaps at that
stage you may be able to be a little more expansive.
Dr Jack: Yes, of course.
Q218 Chairman: What are your chief
responsibilities as Clerk of the House?
Dr Jack: They fall really into
two broad bands, if I could put it that way. On the one hand I
have a role as the chief procedural adviser to the House and of
course particularly to the Speaker and the other incumbents of
the Chair. That is very visible to Members because I am in the
Chamber at the beginning of each day's business, so Members will
be familiar with that. The part of the job which is now in fact
probably the largest part is less visible to some Members, not
to others, there are Members who are very familiar with the administration
of the House, and that is the chief executive role. Over quite
a long period the House has taken upon itself the management of
its business; formerly this was done by government departments.
As the business has grown—I am talking about the administration
of course, not the Members' Estimates—just to give you an
idea, we are now dealing with a resource requirement of something
like £260 million a year and we are employing about 1,700
people here in the Palace, performing all sorts of functions of
course, right across the House service. It has become a pretty
big business and managing that is a big task. I have not really
attempted to quantify this because, as you can imagine, it is
very difficult to do that, but probably as much as 70% of my time
is taken up on executive matters. Obviously I am supported by
a board of management on that side and on the procedural side
I am supported by Clerks at the table and other senior Clerks.
That is really the background to the executive side of the job.
Q219 Chairman: In that very helpful
explanation you referred to your role and responsibility in giving
advice to the Speaker. What proportion of your time is spent in
that role?
Dr Jack: That varies quite a lot.
I have daily contact with the Speaker to discuss the business
of the day and then I will see the Speaker as required during
the day and I am sitting below him for points of order and so
on in the House. Your question actually rather helpfully makes
me able to make the point that the Speaker himself of course is
responsible for the administration of the House through the House
of Commons Commission, so the structure that I have described,
I as Chief Executive with the Management Board, answer to the
House of Commons Commission. The Speaker is the Chairman of that
and of course I will see him on that matter. There is a Commission
meeting today; I think I spent perhaps an hour with the Speaker
discussing Commission issues.
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