Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
760-779)
MS JILL
PAY
7 DECEMBER 2009
Q760 Ann Coffey: I think my question
was how come you never had a conversation with him in which the
Speaker was aware that there was not a warrant.
Ms Pay: I think, because I talked
about the search and searching the premises in the first conversation,
in the face to face conversation, and then when I spoke to him
on the telephone later on the Wednesday afternoon again it was
about searches. It was not about a warrant. At that stage when
I spoke to him on Wednesday afternoon I believed I had the authority
to give the consent to search instead of there being a warrant.
Having a warrant, in my mind, was the alternative route.
Q761 Ann Coffey: I understand the
process. My question is about how could the Speaker of the House
of Commons be left in such a situation as he was left in, in which
he believed that, even if there was a warrant for the search of
a Member of Parliament's offices, there was not. He is the person
with whom the buck stops, the person who is elected by the Members
of the House. How could he be left in such a situation?
Ms Pay: I think only on the assumption
that when you say "search" people assume there is a
warrant.
Q762 Ann Coffey: Do you not think
it was part of your responsibility to make sure that the Speaker
did know that there was not a warrant and that he has that information?
Do you not think he should have known that and you should have
made sure that he understood exactly the position, that there
was not a warrant?
Ms Pay: I think, with the wisdom
of hindsight, yes, I do wish I had said that but we are talking
about facts and I did not say it. I did not say it for the reason
I gave, that I believed I had the authority to give the consent
to search. With hindsight, yes, I should have made it clearer.
Q763 Ann Coffey: Do you think that
the difficulties are caused by the changes in how the administration
of the House is managed and the changes in your role, or do you
think that part of the problem was the nature of the personal
relationships?
Ms Pay: I do not think the organisational
changes impacted on this because the previous Serjeant still had
security access and ceremonial, but other things as well. I feel
that actually it is much easier for me to focus on my responsibilities
than it was for the previous Serjeant because it was such a wide
portfolio. I do not think that impacted on this. I think the difficulty
was because I accepted this duty of confidentiality. My working
relationship with the Speaker had been very effective, and my
working relationship with the Clerk of the House and the Clerk
Assistant. I think the Clerk of the House said that my natural
style is to be consultative and to communicate, but because I
accepted this duty of confidentiality my behaviour was not in
my normal pattern. I am not using it as an excuse, but you ask
me how I think it happened and I think that is how it happened.
Q764 Ann Coffey: You are clearly
taking your share of the responsibility on that. That is very
welcome but I do not believe it is totally down to the fact that
you saw this duty of confidentiality as overriding. I cannot believe
that that is the only reason that we ended up with the situation
that the Speaker did not know that there was not a warrant to
search a Member of Parliament's offices. I am suggesting to you
that the problems and difficulties are probably more complex than
those which you are presenting. It is not so straightforward,
is it?
Ms Pay: I can only tell you from
my perspective. If you want a larger, organisational picture,
maybe you need to ask the Director General who is sitting near
me, or maybe somebody could respond to the Committee in writing
after this meeting. I can tell you from my perspective but not
from the larger, strategic view of the organisation.
Q765 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: You said
in your answer to Mr Howard that you had not asked the Speaker
for his consent to whether you should sign this form because you
believed you had delegated authority to make that decision yourself.
Ms Pay: Yes.
Q766 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Why did
you believe that?
Ms Pay: First of all, there is
this concept that the Speaker is responsible for security but
delegates executive authority to the Serjeant. That is the overriding
view but, because this was new to me and I had not come across
this before, that is why I went to seek advice from the Clerk
of the House, to just check out that point: had I the authority
to give consent to the search.
Q767 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: The Clerk,
when he gave evidence to us—I am sure you have read his
evidence—said that he was in no doubt that the Speaker's
consent ought to have been obtained but he acknowledged that what
he had said to you was that you must consult the Speaker. He did
not explicitly say that you must get his consent, although that
is what he thought he was communicating to you.
Ms Pay: Yes.
Q768 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: When the
Clerk gave you his advice that you should consult the Speaker,
what did you understand him at that time to mean?
Ms Pay: To consult the Speaker,
to talk to the Speaker about what was happening, but I did not
interpret it to overtly ask for the Speaker's agreement to the
consent to search.
Q769 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: The way
we reconcile your evidence with the Clerk of the House's evidence
is that there was a confusion between what he thought he was telling
you and how you understood—
Ms Pay: There was a misunderstanding.
Q770 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: As to the
meaning of the word "consult"?
Ms Pay: That is right, yes.
Q771 Mr Blunkett: For the sake of
clarification around what happened on the day of the arrest, I
would be most grateful if you would just run through with us again
the timetable. As I understood it, at around ten to two, you were
informed that the arrest had taken place. Is that correct?
Ms Pay: Yes, that is right.
Q772 Mr Blunkett: You spoke to the
Clerk when?
Ms Pay: I got to the Clerk's office
at 20 past two.
Q773 Mr Blunkett: That is when he
then knew that an arrest had taken place?
Ms Pay: He had seen it on Sky
News. Sky News got it first.
Q774 Mr Blunkett: When you went to
tell him, he told you he already knew?
Ms Pay: Yes.
Q775 Mr Blunkett: At that point,
did you have a conversation about the likely implications in view
of the privilege and in view of the likelihood obviously of the
House as a whole being concerned in this matter?
Ms Pay: The conversation we had
was about the likelihood that the House would not obstruct a criminal
investigation, whatever the process. This is what I took it to
mean: if the McKay process had been followed, he thought it was
unlikely that the House would obstruct a criminal investigation.
That was an overall point. He also gave me some very good advice.
He said, "You must keep a record and a time line of everything
that was said, to whom and when because there will be an inquiry
into this in due course." That made me realise that it was
extremely serious. That also triggered my request to Chief Superintendent
Bateman to have a very clear statement about the difference between
consent to search and a warrant, because obviously this was going
to be a very big and serious issue.
Q776 Ann Coffey: When you were talking
about the problem having arisen because of this duty of confidentiality,
did you mean by that that you also saw that the information the
police had given you was confidential and to be kept from the
Speaker as well? You felt that duty of confidentiality?
Ms Pay: No. I insisted to the
police all the way through that I was going to tell the Speaker.
There was no question that I would not tell the Speaker this.
Q777 Ann Coffey: When I asked you
about why the Speaker believed that there was a warrant to search
the office and I asked how that situation could have arisen, you
said you felt it arose from a misunderstanding or accepting a
duty of confidentiality.
Ms Pay: How the misunderstanding
occurred, yes. I do not think it was due to that. I think it was
due to the fact that I believed that I had the authority to give
the consent to search and that that had taken me down a route
where there was not a warrant. I accepted that and I did not feel
that I needed to explain all of that route to the Speaker because
I was not asking his agreement to the consent to search. I did
not follow the line of warrant with him.
Q778 Ann Coffey: It was because you
believed you had the authority, not him.
Ms Pay: Yes.
Q779 Ann Coffey: It was more to do
with that than the duty of confidentiality?
Ms Pay: Yes.
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