Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
360-379)
DR MALCOLM
JACK, MS
JACQY SHARPE,
MR MICHAEL
CARPENTER AND
MS VERONICA
DALY
9 NOVEMBER 2009
Q360 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: We know
that the Speaker has said that he was never asked to give his
consent, indeed always assumed that a warrant had been issued.
It came as a matter of total surprise and shock to him to discover.
If the Serjeant at Arms suggested to you that she had the Speaker's
consent, that would not be accurate if the Speaker's evidence
is correct.
Dr Jack: You will have to ask
the Serjeant that but I was not privy to the conversation between
the Speaker and the Serjeant that morning.
Q361 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: What I
am trying to understand though is whether the language which was
used might have caused confusion rather than clarity. Assuming
that nobody was deliberately trying to misinform anybody else—
Dr Jack: No; of course not.
Q362 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: —
if you had asked the Serjeant whether she consulted the Speaker,
we know from the Speaker's evidence that he had been informed
that a Member was likely to be arrested and in that sense he was
consulted. We have no reason at the moment to believe that either
the Speaker or the Serjeant takes the view that the Speaker was
asked for or gave his consent to the search without a warrant.
Therefore if the Serjeant at Arms gave you that impression, that
would have to have been presumably based on a very serious misunderstanding
as to what you were asking her.
Dr Jack: I think you have heard
evidence from Lord Martin of Springburn that he did not understand
that a consent form—
Q363 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Forgive
me; that is not what he said. The question of consent forms was
never raised with him, he told us.
Dr Jack: Yes, that is what I am
saying, that he had no knowledge.
Q364 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Nor did
he ask about it; he simply assumed that if someone's office was
being searched the police must have a warrant and it was with
a sense of shock that he was subsequently informed that they had
no warrant and had never asked for a warrant.
Dr Jack: I was talking to the
Serjeant on the basis of a consent form which was in front of
me which she had signed and she had consulted the Speaker about.
Q365 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: So far
as you can recollect, did you expressly ask whether the Speaker
consented to her signing a consent form?
Dr Jack: No, not to her signing
a consent form; no, not in those words.
Q366 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Not in
those words.
Dr Jack: No.
Q367 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: So she
may have misunderstood what you meant by "consult".
Dr Jack: Possibly.
Q368 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: There is
no other explanation unless she was deliberately misleading you.
Would that be a fair comment?
Dr Jack: I really do not think
I can go into the mind of the Serjeant. You will have to ask her.
Q369 Ann Coffey: I just want to disentangle
something. The consent to search had been given by the Serjeant
and then in an attempt to mitigate that did you instruct something
to be put into that which limited the extent of the search. Did
you instruct the Serjeant?
Dr Jack: No, it did not limit
the search. The consent had already been given and that was the
end of it. What it did do was to define the offence on which the
search was being made because the consent form has no offence
written on it, so there was no record.
Q370 Ann Coffey: I am just trying
to establish who made what decision and the extent of the decision.
If you were able to influence in that way or instruct in that
way, why could you not just ask the Serjeant to withdraw the consent?
Dr Jack: Because she had given
the consent on behalf of the Speaker. She just signs the consent
form. This is what I mean by delegated authority. The authority
is delegated in her. She has no authority that does not derive
from the Speaker.
Q371 Ann Coffey: But she signed the
consent form. It must have been quite clear at some point that
there was a lot of confusion in this area and it must have been
quite clear that in fact the Speaker had not given permission
for the consent and that must have become clear.
Dr Jack: No, that was not clear
at all; it certainly was not clear to me. In fact the opposite
was the case.
Q372 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: When did
you first understand that the Speaker had never given consent
to a consent form being signed by the Serjeant?
Dr Jack: Probably on the Saturday
following these events.
Q373 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: How did
you become aware of that?
Dr Jack: I think I spoke to the
Speaker.
Q374 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: He was
clearly shocked that this had all happened without a warrant.
Dr Jack: Yes, he said that he
had never understood that this had happened without a warrant.
Q375 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: At that
time, did you appreciate that you had been labouring under a misunderstanding?
Dr Jack: Yes, I did.
Q376 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: So you
are saying to us that the reason why, even when you found that
there was no warrant, you did not feel able to tell the police
that consent was withdrawn was because you assumed that the Speaker
had given authority for that consent and you could not overrule
the Speaker.
Dr Jack: Yes, that is correct.
I have no executive role whatsoever in giving consent. I am merely
the adviser to the Speaker on privilege matters.
Q377 Ann Coffey: It appears that
this place not only operates on Chinese whispers, it operates
on Chinese walls. The system of managerial accountability is absolutely
incredible in its tangential nature.
Dr Jack: I am not sure what you
are asking me.
Q378 Ann Coffey: It seems to me incredible
that you as the chief executive of the House, the man in charge
of the administration of this place ... in any other walk of life
the chief executive is the man and he takes management responsibility
for everything. We have come to this situation because the Serjeant
believed she was having private confidential conversations with
the police with whom she needed a good working relationship, that
her line manager was in fact the Clerk Assistant. The Speaker
at the end of the day ultimately gives consent but he did not
know anything about it because people did not actually tell him
about it. The end result was the search of the office of a Member
of Parliament based on a complete and utter misunderstanding and
a management system where it appears that nobody takes overall
responsibility at the end of the day. That is how it would be
perceived and it seems to me that if anything comes out of this
at all, some clarification has to be given as to how the management
structure in this place works.
Dr Jack: The Speaker's protocol
certainly clarifies the matter on a number of issues. My answer
to you is that there is no other corporation which incorporates
privilege. That is what I said at the very beginning when I described
my job.
Q379 Ann Coffey: No, we are not discussing
privilege. This is about how an organisation is managed. This
is completely separate from privileges. It is just about how decisions
are made, who makes them and to whom they are accountable and
having clarity about that.
Dr Jack: Yes, but it is not in
this case separated from privilege because this is the whole matter
that we are discussing.
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