Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram - Standards and Privileges Committee Contents

1  Sir John Butterfill

11.  Letter to Sir John Butterfill MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010

Having consulted the Committee on Standards and Privileges, I have decided exceptionally to accept the reference you made to me in your e-mail of 22 March in respect of recent allegations made against you arising from an article in the Sunday Times of 21 March and Channel 4's Dispatches programme of 22 March.

In essence, the allegations are that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public's trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute.

The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct:

" 9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.

"10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.

"11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.

"12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.

"13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.

[...]

"15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public's trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute."

The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows:

"16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members' Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies."

The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows:

"Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd's should be registered under this Category."

The rules in relation to Category 2 set out in the guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the allegation) includes the following in paragraph 19:

"All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example 'management consultant', 'legal adviser', 'parliamentary and public affairs consultant'."

The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following:

"Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001-£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members' Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public."

More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 guide.

Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members' Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows:

"In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term 'servants of the Crown' should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments."

The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration are set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full.

Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows:

"This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so."

Paragraph 73 provides:

"The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad."

I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could:

1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist;

2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview, and whether each such statement is true:

a) That you would be happy to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of fee-paying clients and, if true, whether you have made such introductions at any time in the past;

b) That in the past you had done quite a lot of consultancy work for people who wanted to get involved in the public sector and, if true, what that work was, when you undertook it, and whether you registered your consultancy work in the Register of Members' Interests;

c) That people have in the past come to you for advice on, for example, procurement issues and, if true, when that happened, what advice you gave, what payment, if any, you received from these people for this or other services and whether you registered your services in the Register of Members' Interests and made appropriate declarations;

d) That Members of the House of Lords are very much involved in "procurement or in telecommunications or whatever it is you are looking at", and, if true, what you intended to imply by that statement in terms of your own employment by the client if you were to become a Member of the House of Lords.

e) That you could organise a meeting with a Minister in their office or on a visit and, if true, when you did so for a client who paid you for your services and whether that service was registered in the Register of Members' Interests and appropriate declarations made;

f) That you said it would be "easy enough" to arrange a meeting with Conservative Ministers if there were a Conservative government and if there was something genuine to interest them—and "that depends on how I present things"; and, if true, what you intended to convey to the interviewer in respect of the paid employment which you were discussing;

g) That you said to the interviewer that being in the House of Lords "gives me another string to my bow as far as you are concerned", and, if true, what you meant to imply by saying that;

h) That you said that the going rate for the work you believed you were discussing was £30,000 to £35,000 a year.

3. Confirm whether you have at any time been paid £30,000 to £35,000 a year for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether you registered these payments;

4. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;

5. Confirm if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities.

6. Confirm if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.

Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome.

I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of your interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about these.

I would be grateful for a response to this letter within the next three weeks. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House.

I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House.

I look forward to your help on this matter.

23 March 2010

12.  Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 24 March 2010

Thank you for your letter of the 23rd March. I would comment on your points as follows:

I was interviewed by the journalist following a telephone approach to my P.A. which indicated that a company known as Anderson Perry, which claimed to be a major consultancy organisation in the U.S. and which was seeking to expand its operations in the U.K. and Europe, was looking to form an advisory board with authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. It was also apparently looking for consultants having intimate and expert knowledge of Government affairs to be employed on a retainer basis. I am enclosing the e-mail that was sent to me on the l6th February, together with my reply of the 17th February.[522] I responded by telephone, during the course of which I indicated that I might be interested in an appointment to their European Advisory Board but that I was not particularly interested in working in the field of Government affairs on a retainer basis. We discussed my business background and I pointed out that I had in the past been active in Europe and a director of companies in France and Denmark and that I spoke French, Danish and Spanish. As a result of this, as you will see from the enclosed e-mails, we made an appointment to meet on Wednesday 24th February.

I confirm that the televised discussions are accurate but the interview was heavily edited to exclude matters which would put these discussions in a different light. I was pleased, therefore, to see that you have asked to see the unedited original of this recording. The particular points that have been omitted are as follows:

Our early discussion centred upon my previous business career and the skills that I could bring to any directorship.

When asked whether I would be prepared to organise any entertaining of Ministers or Civil Servants, I answered, "no, that would be improper and a breach of the rules".

At the end of the interview, I indicated that I was unsure whether I would be willing to undertake work for their company and, before making a decision, I would need to have a great deal more information about them, who their directors and shareholders were and whether they were of the highest integrity and standing. I indicated that this due diligence process might take some time, particularly since I had been previously approached by American interests and following investigations found out that they were not people I wished to be involved with.

I confirm that I said that once I was no longer an MP, I would be free to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of clients. I have never in the past made such introductions.

The work that I had done in the past was entirely unremunerated and related to representations made to me by constituency companies, many of whom were involved in Government in diverse ways, notably in the fields of insurance, financial services and manufacturing, for example, Cobham (formerly Flight Refuelling), who employ a very large number of my constituents and who came seeking my support and that of other neighbouring M.Ps.

This is covered in (b) above. I have never received payment or any other form of remuneration and therefore registration in the Register of Members' Interests was not appropriate.

My comment regarding the House of Lords was a rather stupid one since I completely overlooked the fact that, if I were to become a member of the House of Lords, I would be governed by similar rules to those which apply in the House of Commons.

I confirm that I said I could probably organise meetings with Ministers on a paid basis in the future when I was no longer a Member but I have never done so in the past.

I confirm that I said that it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting with Ministers if there were a Conservative Government and if there was something genuine to interest them. By this I implied that the matter would be something which the Minister might find helpful and possibly create a situation where valuable business could accrue to UK Plc. The phrase 'that depends on how I present things' was intended to imply that I would be competent in any initial representation that I made.

The phrase "gives me another string to my bow so far as I am concerned" was intended to imply that potential clients would be likely to look favourably on having a member of the House of Lords on the advisory board.

I confirm that I said that the going rate for the work we were discussing as a director of an advisory board was in the region of £30-35,000 a year.

1. I confirm that I have never at any time been paid £30-35,000 a year for consultancies or other services. In the distant past, I have acted as an advisor to a number of trade associations as shown on the enclosed c.v.[523] These were as follows: British Insurance & Investment Brokers Association (BIIBA) (1992-97), the IFA Association (1992-97) and the British Venture Capital Association (1994-2001). Each of these was remunerated and duly registered in the Register of Members' Interests. At no time did I specifically lobby for these Associations but was scrupulous to ensure that, if any specific matters arose which were relevant to these bodies, then I would declare it. I did not engage in advocacy for them. My reasons for becoming involved with them were that, in the case of the BVCA I had a great deal to do with private equity which had funded some of the companies in which I was involved and, in the case of BIIBA and the IFA, because I had been involved in insurance broking in my partnership with Curchod & Co, that my late father was a Lloyds' broker and that insurance is one of the leading areas of employment in my constituency. None of my other business appointments were in any way related to my membership of the House of Commons.

2. Neither I nor my legal advisers (I have not appointed legal advisers) have had contacts with the reporters since the Dispatches programme was broadcast.

3. I did not have to consider that I had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, given that I had definitely not decided to take up an appointment with Anderson Perry nor had they made any offer to me. I had considerable reservations about them so that there was no obligation on me to make an entry in the Register.

4. None of what I said was untrue but perhaps foolish and slightly exaggerated in parts.

I have no further points to make to you regarding this matter but I am very anxious that you should obtain a full and unedited copy of the interview. Please let me know of any further information that you may require.

24 March 2010

13.  E-mail to Sir John Butterfill MP from Anderson Perry Associates, 16 February 2010

It was good to speak to you earlier today.

As I explained, I work for a US communications company called Anderson Perry Associates and we have recently set up a UK office. Our clients operate in the US and Middle East but a number are looking to expand their operations in the UK and Europe.

To meet our clients' needs we will be forming a European advisory board consisting of a number of authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. We are also looking to hire consultants who have an intimate and expert knowledge of government affairs to work for us on a retainer basis.

You said that you might be free next week to discuss this further. I will speak to your PA about your availability, but perhaps we could do Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon?

Here is a link to our website—www.andersonperryassociates.com. My office number is [...] and my mobile [...].

Many thanks.

16 February 2010

14.  Letter to Sir John Butterfill MP from the Commissioner, 25 March 2010

Thank you very much for your letter of 24 March responding to mine of 23 March about this inquiry into the interview you gave to what you thought was a United States consultancy organisation.

It is most helpful to have this response and to receive it so promptly.

I will come back to you when I have a response to my request for the full interview. Meanwhile, it might be helpful if you could clarify or provide a little more information on the following:

1. Paragraph 2 (b)—could you confirm that the consultancy work you have done in the past was only related to companies based in your constituency, and do you have any further examples in addition to Cobham? It would also be helpful if you could clarify your reference to them being "involved in Government in diverse ways."

2. Paragraph 2 (g)—I think the quotation was "gives me another string to my bow so far as you are concerned." [524]This is not quite the same as you have in your letter. Please let me know if you think I have misheard.

3. Point 4—I note that you have not had contact with the reporter since the programme was broadcast. But could you let me know of any contacts you had with the reporters or programme makers since the interview on 24 February, with copies of any correspondence.

Thank you again for your help. I look forward to hearing from you.

25 March 2010

15.  Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 6 April 2010

I thank you for your letter of the 25th March and would respond to your further inquiries as follows:

1. Paragraph 2(b): My past unpaid work under this heading was related only to companies based in my constituency or employing large numbers of my constituents. Examples are Liverpool Victoria, Portman Building Society, Lloyds TSB, Abbey Life etc., all of whom would contact me from time to time on a wide variety of issues to raise with the Government. These might have related to taxation, regulatory matters etc.

2. Paragraph 2(g): The quotation "gives me another string to my bow as far as you are concerned" (I am not entirely sure of the precise wording) was intended to convey that I would be more valuable to them by virtue of being seen to be rather more prestigious in dealings with their clients.

3. Point 4: I have not had any contact with the reporters or programme makers since the interview, other than by sending the programme makers a short e-mail, a copy of which I enclose,[525] and also speaking on the telephone with the Sunday Times reporter before the article was published in that newspaper.

I hope that this is helpful.

6 April 2010

16.  Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010

I have now received the certified transcripts of your conversations with the undercover reporter, which is the subject of the inquiry which you asked that I undertake.

I attach a copy of the certified transcripts. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose.

I said when I initially wrote to you on 23 March that I might need to ask you about some further points having seen these transcripts. The points on which I would welcome your help are as follows:

The transcript of your phone call does not appear to cover some of the points which you made at part one of your letter to me of 24 March—in particular, the claim that you were not particularly interested in the field of Government affairs on a retainer basis, and the discussion about your business background. Was there a different conversation when you raised these points or was your recall mistaken?

You say on page 3, "I've done in the past quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector … It's now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you're retired you can do as much of it as you like … So people have come to me for advice on procurement issues, for example." [526]I would like to be able to reconcile that statement with what you told me at point b of your letter of 24 March and reiterated in your letter of 6 April. Given that all your consultancy work was unpaid and on behalf of companies in your constituency, I am having difficulty in understanding your reference to it now being difficult for a serving MP to do that, since that might be thought to be a reasonable activity for a Member to undertake in support of their constituents. I would be grateful if you could help me with this.

On page 4, you say in relation to Kvaerner, "… I have to say I blackmailed him [an alleged Norwegian asset stripper]. I said that unless you put a decent amount of money into the British pension fund, he might find it difficult to get public sector work, either here, or in the rest of the EU. And he put twenty-five million in." [527] Is this an accurate statement of what in fact happened? Do you think that it was acceptable for you to "blackmail" him as described, and how would you have been able to influence public sector work as you suggest?

You say on page 5 that "all my private Members' Bills are pro bono".[528] Do you accept that the implication of this statement would appear to be that there are some private Members' Bills that are not pro bono—and would be the subject of payment to a Member? Do you think it reasonable to draw such a conclusion and, if so, to make such an allegation?

You say on page 10 that you would be prepared to undertake informal consultancy work while still a sitting MP.[529] Can you tell me what you thought you were agreeing to, and whether you assumed you would be paid for that work?

You say on page 14 that you had had a number of approaches, including from a major trade association, for work after you left Parliament.[530] Could you let me know whether you have at present secured any remunerated employment and, if so, what it is?

You refer on page 14 to your chairmanship of Gold Mining.[531] Could you confirm that this is a reference to your Register entry as a Director and shareholder of Gold Island Limited, and, as you recalled in category 11, that it is currently unremunerated?

I would, of course, welcome any other comments you may wish to make having seen the transcripts, either on the context or on particular points. I appreciate that you may want a little time to go through the transcript, but it would be helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter by the end of this month.

Thank you for your continued help.

2 June 2010

17.  Dispatches 'Politicians for Hire'—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Sir John Butterfill MP on 16 February 2010

Telephone conversation between [...], under the name Claire Webster ("CW") and John Butterfill ("JB")

JB	Hello?
CW	Hello. Is that John Butterfill?
JB	It is.
CW	Hello, this is Claire Webster calling from Anderson Perry.
JB	Yes.
CW	I'm sorry I was wrapping up a meeting when you called before so I'm sorry I couldn't take your call then. So, we are a company that's based in London now but we've got a big office in America, I'm just opening up the London one as we speak. And we're looking for some people to do some kind of consultancy work for us or to sit on the advisory board we're forming to help our clients and I was wondering if it was something you might be interested in doing?
JB	Yes, well in principle, I should think yes. I mean I'd like to know a bit more about you and everything else.
CW	Yes, of course! [laughs]
JB	What would you want me to do for you?
CW	Well, I suppose, just thinking about the advisory board first, that would be to kind of help us with developing our business and contact network in London and of course supporting our clients in a broad way and I would expect that to be maybe, um, for the advisory board, a meeting every quarter or so.
JB	Yes.
CW	But also we're looking for consultants to work a bit more closely with our clients. So there's two kinds of roles up for grabs really it would kind of depend what you were most interested in.
JB	And introductions, presumably to potential customers and everything else?
CW	Yes, that kind of thing.
JB	You're essentially a PR company?
CW	Yes well communications company really so within that we do PR and public affairs and that kind of thing.
JB	Do I know any of your board or...?
CW	No you certainly won't because we're only setting it up at the moment, we've only opened our London office in the last month or so. We're well established in America, in San Francisco.
JB	Fine.
CW	But because of the needs of our clients we thought well actually it's time to open a London office and try to get a bit more on top of what's going on here in terms of legislation that might affect our clients but also just general issues and you know...
JB	You're aware that I'm retiring from Parliament?
CW	Yes I am aware of that but I didn't think that would really matter.
JB	I don't think so I think I will still know everybody pretty well.
CW	Yes, no, I'd imagine so, you've got lots of experience. I'd imagine you've got a good network and know how things work really.
JB	Well, er and will I find you on the internet? I'm sure I will.
CW	Yes. Yes we've got a website. If you'd like I can drop you an e-mail with my contact details and also the website
JB	That would be most helpful.
CW	And perhaps we could, you might like to come to our office—I don't know if you're around this week as its recess but perhaps next week and we can talk about it further.
JB	Yes, well send the things to me. I've got a fairly busy time next week but we can probably fit something in I'm sure. Where are you based?
CW	St James's.
JB	In St James's, that's fairly convenient [family reference].
CW	What e-mail should I contact you on?
JB	I think, well I'm going to be getting rid...I think probably if you do my personal one which is [...]
CW	OK. I'll drop you an e-mail this afternoon with some details...
JB	That's great.
CW	...and then if you could just let me know your availability that would be great.
JB	I'll do that...well if you let me know when you have in mind roughly we'll try and work something out.
CW	OK alright that's kind of you I'll do that.
JB	And if you can't get hold of me. You've spoken to my PA[...]?
CW	Yes I did, I called her yesterday.
JB	She's brilliant.
CW	Oh great, so I can just arrange something via her. OK well nice to talk to you I'll drop you an e-mail this afternoon.
JB	Thank you very much indeed.
CW	Nice to talk to you John, bye!
JB	Bye.

18.  Dispatches 'Politicians for Hire'—Transcript of Sir John Butterfill MP meeting 24 February 2010

JB	TC 00:16:50 00:19:11	Dialogue [preamble/chat whilst making tea] I have brought you just so that it, sorry, because I thought it might help you, would you like a CV?
CW		Oh great thank you, how organised, that's great, thank you.
JB		It tells you a bit about what I've done over the years.
CW		Brilliant, yeah that is very useful. So as I said really on the phone, I've just set up the London office here, we're an American company, and we'll be moving in here kind of properly in the next couple of weeks I hope. You know, it's a great location. And one of the things I've got to do over the next couple of months is set up an advisory board for us and our clients and I'm also looking to take on a couple of consultants who could work specifically for some clients, so depending on what areas you're interested in, you may be interested in doing that or not.
JB		You'll get an idea from that CV of the range of things that I've dealt with in the past.
CW		Well just looking at your appointments for various departments, Energy and Transport and Northern Ireland, it looks quite varied you know, you've got a lotof experience, by the look of it.
JB		But if you look at, and then pensions is a big thing of mine, I founded the all party group on that.
CW		Oh right.
JB		I've been Chairman of it since its inception.
CW		We that's, yeah, that's quite interesting actually.
JB		But then, if you look at the, first lot of the companies where I, I've actually been a director and a shareholder, so you've got the Gold thing in Iceland, I already, Butterfill Associates is really just something that I dump in casual fees for the Inland Revenue.
CW		Oh right.
JB		And it's a partnership with my wife, so I can wash through little things like that. Conservation Investments is a family investment company. Curchod's Chartered Surveyors are, answers itself. Micro Business Systems, I was a founder of that, it's now part of Fujitsu. That was IT hardware and leasing. St Paul's Securities, which I founded with a chap called Jim Slater, who you probably won't even remember.
CW		No, I don't unfortunately.
JB	00:21:26	They were one of the big merchant banks in the city, they caught a terrible cold in the late seventies or mid seventies, but I didn't and I was very successful with it and made myself a millionaire.
CW		Oh, congratulations.
JB		Which was a happy thing to do. And I sold it out to Jimmy Goldsmith, but, and then I was in Bovis, I was, that's a construction and property company and their French subsidiary. Oh, I had a Danish subsidiary in St Pauls Securities because I speak rather bad Danish and good French, bad Danish and bad Spanish. Then Hammerson's were one of the biggest property companies in the UK and Jones Lang Wootton who are probably the biggest consultants, they're now Jones, they've amalgamated, Jones Lang La...., LaRoq or something, they merged with an American company. And then you can see all my non-executive (...INAUDIBLE...).
CW	00:22:35	Yes.
JB		Construction Industry. Venture Capital, I was for nearly nine years, on the, no seven years on the council and taxation committee. Delphi Group, that's IT services and recruitment. Two Lloyds brokers doing different things. Maples was a furniture company. Then British insurance and investment people and the IFA, so that's insurance and financial advice. Pavilion Services, we bought all the rank motorway service areas; I was a shareholder in that before I landed director, non-executive director.
CW		Right.
JB		And we turned them all round and we sold them off to Granada at a huge profit. And then a Danish construction company and an English construction company. And then you've got my charitable things.
CW		Yes.
JB		So it's fairly broad.
CW	00:23:36	It is very broad and amazingly detailed, you've obviously been involved with an awful lot of things. It's great, which is good actually for us. We have clients whose interests kind of span from defence, all the way through to construction and investments. We have a group of Middle Eastern business men, who are very interested in investing in the UK at the moment, in terms of property, so maybe that's offices. But also they're very interested in aviation and there's going to be a lot of expansion in terms of airports and also just transport infrastructure. So I think they're interested in getting involved with building some of the infrastructure for the high speed railways, for example, if that all goes ahead.
JB		Yes.
CW		Which would be quite an important...
JB		As you see, I was in the Department of Transport.
CW		Yes, well exactly, I'm sure you know all about it.
JB		It was a long time ago.
CW	00:24:38	But I'm sure you know how those kinds of things work. And so really, what we're looking to be able to provide for us and also our clients, is a kind of insight into the way that things work in the UK. Who we should be talking to, who they should be talking to, what kind of opportunities there are. Someone that can really just give us a heads up and an insight into what's going on. I don't know if it might be useful for you to maybe give me some examples of things that you've done for clients, and work that you've done that might be kind of useful to us, so I can kind of feedback to my board about your kind of background and experience.
JB		Well what I think, possibly, is the simplest way of doing that is, if you, I'll give you another copy of that, if you say to them well this is what this chap's been doing, which of the bits would you like to hear more about? Does that make sense?
CW		Yeah, that does absolutely make sense. Do you take, for the kind of consultancy work that you do, what does that normally involve? What's your kind of experience?
JB	00:25:37	It's enormously varied, and rather, as you can see from this. I've done, in the past quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector. And that will now, it's now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you're retired, you can do as much of it as you like. And a lot of Ministers do that as well, retire into that. So people have come to me for advice on procurement issues, for example.
CW		So how to get Government contracts really?
JB		Yes, yes. But property, as you will see, is something that, I'm a chartered surveyor by profession, so that's my qualification and anything to do with real estate, particularly commercial real estate, rather than residential. I mean I know a bit about residential, but I, my experience has mainly been in commercial. And I was quite a substantial property developer in my own right before I became an MP. So anything in terms of property, anything to do with financial services really, that's the other main thing that I do, particularly pensions. And in relation to pensions a lot, I'm chairman of the parliamentary pension scheme general trustees. I'm also, was the chairman of the PDSA. Do you know the PDSA?
CW		Yes the, yeah.
JB		The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals? One of our top twenty charities, turnover between eighty and a hundred million. It's quite large for a charity.
CW		Yes it is.
JB		And I chaired their pension scheme for about six years. And then a lot of people have come to me with pension problems and I think I outlined them in here. Yes. For example, when Maxwell, do you remember when Maxwell went bust?
CW		Of course.
JB	00:27:33	Well they came to me and actually I did that, I didn't charge them, because I said enough people are ripping you off. I actually managed to get, in order to rescue that scheme, I was able to persuade the Government to change the law, so that they could set up a structure where, there were about seven schemes and some of them were more adversely affected than others, by what had been stolen by Maxwell. And what we had to do was to enable them to support one another until we could get the money back. And that was illegal, so we had to have the law changed, which I managed to persuade the Minister to do and actually we got nearly all the money back and nearly everybody saved all their pensions.
CW		Oh that was lucky.
JB	00:28:19	So that was one of the things I was did. And then one of the others that I was involved with, was the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and their pension scheme was in a dire mess and they came to me and said can you help us out? And I actually got it solved, in the end I managed to get the Government to effectively take it over.
CW		Oh good.
JB		So that they were saved. We couldn't have the home of the British commonwealth having its pension scheme go bust. And then Kvaerner, you probably know Kvaerner, they're one of the big engineering groups.
CW	00:28:55	Yes.
JB		They got taken over, together with the British subsidiaries, by a Norwegian asset stripper, who wanted to strip out all the assets and then get a lot of business in for the engineering side, all round Europe. And I have to say I blackmailed him. I said that unless you put a decent amount of money into the British pension fund, he might find it difficult to get public sector work, either here, or in the rest of the EU. And he put twenty five million in.
CW		Oh good.
JB		And, but then, lots of people come to me for those sort of things, because I can push the right buttons.
CW	00:29:44	Well yeah, I think that's, what's, my background is kind of PR actually. So what's quite important, I think, for the advisory board, is to get a kind of insight into the workings of Government. And also, you know, it's very difficult for me just to be able to call up a civil servant or, I don't know, a Minister, or an MP, or whoever, because I don't know them. And even knowing who the right person is to call can quite tricky, you know, I think from the outside you don't really know the workings of Government. And so I think it's that kind of expertise that I'd quite like to draw on for the advisory board.
JB	00:30:20	A lot of this I've done on a pro bono basis. And for example, all my private Members' Bills are pro bono, the last one, the Building Societies (Funding) and Mutual Societies (Transfers) Act has actually saved the bacon of the mutual sector.
CW		Has it?
JB		Because otherwise, they, some of them would have been in considerable difficulties. But you may have noticed that there's now been an acquisition of, for example, some of the building societies being taken over by, by banks.
CW		Yes.
JB		Co-op recently bought, bought Britannia. Now that would have been virtually impossible before my Bill went through. And so I'm very much in the good books of all the mutual insurers, like LV or Nationwide.
CW		Were you working for them was that?
JB	00:31:19	No, I did it pro bono. You know, all, all of these things are pro bono, the Policyholders' Protection Act well that was, there, there was a difficultly that ifyou had an insurance and your, and your insurance company went bust, youmight not get all the money that you were entitled to, so my Act actuallystrengthened your position.
CW		Oh great, so you made lots of friends by doing that then?
JB		Yes. And then I did one on insolvency, which I won't take you into, but it was very complex and the Law Society came to me and said, can you get this through, and I said yeah, and I did. And the Registered Homes (Amendment) Act was really to avoid some abuse in care homes, where there were a lot of cowboys running it and I tightened up all the regulations.
CW		Yes, well that can be a big issue.
JB		So those, it's a fairly broad...
CW		It is.
JB		Brush, but you can see the, the main things that I've been involved with and if they want to know a little bit more. I, in turn, would like to know a little bit more about them.
CW		Yes.
JB		I looked them up on Google, and couldn't find out very much.
CW		Oh really? Okay, well let me tell you a bit.
JB		Are they related to the other Anderson Perry, who are the engineering company?
CW		No, I don't think so, they largely do business on the west coast of America and it's quite kind of low key I suppose for their clients, they don't want to make a big fuss about who they are, it's just in America about meeting kind of the right people to help people do business really. So there's a defence company that they look after in the States and they manufacture chassis for mine protected vehicles, so they have a contract with the State Department, the Defence Department in the States to produce those. And so that's one thing they'd be looking to kind of try to expand into the UK, as they've got a contract in the US, they think well, surely we could do the same for the MOD? Maybe they can.
JB	00:33:19	I would be in a position, once I've retired, to open doors there to Ministers. Which, really whichever party becomes.
CW		Yes, well that's one thing I wanted to ask about, you know, if the Conservatives win the election I'm presuming that would be good.
JB		It will be more helpful to me, but I actually have very good relationships with a lot of the Labour. I mean, for example, my building societies funding and mutual societies, Ed Balls was tremendous, tremendously helpful to me in getting that through.
CW		Oh really? How does that work in terms of kind of cross party relations?
JB		Well sometimes you have, I mean there are very close friendships across parties. I mean, although we fight each other nominally, you know, at Question Time it's not always like. And I, I've, I've been on the Trade Minister's Select Committee for nearly nine years, as you will see from that, and, and we operate for the benefit of Britain. Ed I've known quite well, I know his father ...
CW		Oh I see.
JB		Because I'm one of the founders of the Parliamentary group FRAME which you won't of heard of, but it's the fund for the replacement of animals in medical experiments. And what they do is to...fund ...the, what's the word I want? Where they're looking at ways, research into animal ...into humans using animals, we try to find ways they can avoid using animals
CW		Yes, as much as possible, yeah.
JB		Yes and its becoming more and more possible now with stem cells. And we finance that research. And Ed's father, Michael Balls, Professor Michael Balls, is the chairman of that.
CW		Oh, I see.
JB		So you, it's amazing how, it's a very small world.
CW		Yes. Yeah, I bet it is.
JB	00:35:34	I would need to know before I... you might not think I'm what you want but if you did I would really want to know quite a lot more about the company and the personalities behind it.
CW		Yes, that's absolutely fine. What I think I'm going to do over the next couple of weeks is draw, um, a short list. I'm looking for about maybe four to six kind of advisory board members, so I'll draw up a short list up and someone will be coming over from the States and then those people will be able to meet at least one or two of the directors from the States and maybe some of the clients as well, which I think would be quite nice
JB		Well that would be helpful. In my position, you have to be careful.
CW		Of course you want to know who you're working with.
JB		That's right. Well I can tell you that once I had some people who wanted me to help them put lots and lots of money into the UK and when I dug deeply, the source of the money was not very, strictly kosher.
CW		No I think, you, well yeah, that would be very worrying.
JB		So I just turned that down. Actually the more questions I asked, the less information I got.
CW		Well of course they didn't want to say where the money was coming from.
JB		I'm not in any way suggesting that.
CW		No, well I wouldn't want to work with people like that either.
JB		I'd need to be pretty reassured.
CW		Oh of course, yes. Well this is just, I just wanted to kind of have an informal chat with you, just to gauge your interest really and also the kind of things you might be able to do and your kind of expertise. There's one thing we obviously do need to do, is be able to meet people in the next Government, whoever that may be and we'd be looking for some help with that really, in identifying who we need to be talking to and then perhaps smoothing the way for us, because as I've said its quite hard for me to call.
JB		Well they're pretty well all friends of mine.
CW		Oh, good.
JB		I don't think I've fallen out with any of them, but you wouldn't have a problem with the next Government assuming it's Conservative, but nor would you havea particular problem if Labour
CW		Hold on.
JB		Well it would probably, I don't think Labour can become the next Government but I think it could be within a, some sort of coalition. And again there, I've got very good relationships with pretty well all the Labour Ministers.
CW		How easy is it kind of to contact them, is it just a case of picking up the phone and because of who you are they answer the phone or?
JB		Yes, it, it, in my case yes, I could just pick up for the phone for ninety percent of them I'd think.
CW		And what about civil servants? I've kind of been told from my very kind of limited public affairs knowledge, that they are the people that make lots of the decisions and they're the people that you need to be talking to. Is that right?
JB	00:38:19	Ah, yes and no. I wouldn't be as good with civil servants as I would be with Ministers, because they try to keep us away from the civil servants. But inevitably I've, over the years I've got to know a lot of the civil servants and some of them are friends and some aren't. But I would be honest with you, that I would have fewer contacts within the civil service, than I would with Ministers.
CW		Yes, well I think that would be okay. I would imagine our clients would be quite impressed to be able to meet a Minister or even to have a lunch or to go in for a meeting within the department.
JB		Yes, I could normally arrange for your clients to meet Ministers. And civil servants are quite difficult about that, they don't like being taken out to lunch and wined and dined, because they'll be accused of being partial perhaps. That's a much more difficult thing, they've become, because over the years there have been a few scandals about civil servants giving preference to this or that, you know, and they try very scrupulously to avoid that. And it's not just at a Government level, you find it at local government, yes. For example, if you wanted to build some huge sort of a development somewhere, property development, you can go and meet the planning officer and you an open the doors to see and they'll meet you in their office. But if you asked them out to lunch, they wouldn't go.
CW		Oh really, that's very useful to know. See it's that kind of familiarity, I think, with regional and central Government that is very useful to us.
JB		Yes. They, they're very, very cautious about meeting anybody outside their offices.
CW		Oh, right. So it's very hard to get them out for lunch?
JB		So you don't take them out to lunch.
CW		No exactly, you might alarm them.
JB		Yes. That would be the wrong thing to do and actually, even with Ministers because we're so much scrutinised now. I could organise a Minister, a meeting with a Minister in his office, or possibly if the Minister were really interested in getting more briefing, they might come to you, but they would usually prefer to meet in their office and there would be a civil servant sitting in. There's always a civil servant making notes of what was said on each side. It's to cover their back, you know. But they would all see me and there won't be a problem about that.
CW		Yes, presumably they can see you informally, it's just when I trot in.
JB		Yes, that's right, yes.
CW	00:31:11	Yes which I suppose could be quite useful. Are there any people within the shadow cabinet that you're particularly close to, or have good relations with, that?
JB		Yeah, again most of them. David Cameron, I was one of the four original people who persuaded him to stand. And George Osborne and I were the main. Actually if was funny how it all really came about. I've known David for over twenty years, I knew him when he first came down from Oxford with his shiny new double first and I was then working with Cecil Parkinson at the Department of Transport. And he came down as part of our team and we employed him, he did a lot of research for us, did part of the speech writing, you know, policy development. And I formed a very high opinion of him then. Because what David's got is quite unique, he's got the, possibly the most powerful brain in the House of Commons
CW		Really?
JB	00:42:20	Yes. Intellectually he's a genius. He doesn't, most people who are that clever are either slightly away with the fairies, you know what I mean?
CW		Or quite awkward or something.
JB		Or, yes can be rude and awkward and, you know, not very many social graces. And he's neither of those things. When you meet him you think, what a nice bloke, you know, and he just seems like everybody else, you know, but a nice one, you know. And that's a tremendous gift. And he's a very good orator.
CW		Yes, yeah he does speak well.
JB	00:42:51	He's very good at, very good with people. For example, William Hague, brilliant brain, terrible with people.
CW		Oh, really?
JB		Oh, awful. Very, very good orator, fantastic orator, debater, anything like that, he's better than, he's better than David at the dispatch box, for example. But he couldn't manage people at all, he was a disaster. We kicked him out in the end. Because I was deputy chairman of the 1922 Committee at that stage and we said he's got to go, because he just alienated everybody. David doesn't do that. And one of the things we had in common, until recently, I'm not doing it so much nowadays, but I used to cycle into work and so did he.
CW		Oh, so could you race him?
JB	00:43:39	And so we were, we were always meeting in the changing rooms when we were showering, when we got in, because we were all hot and sticky. And I said to him, "David you've just got to stand, because if you don't we'll go down to another huge defeat and we can't afford to do that yet another time." And he said, "No, no, no," he was too young and too inexperienced and the party wouldn't have him. I said, "Well look, you leave that to us and we'll see what we can do." Then George also cycled in, so I tackled George and I said, "George, you and I have really got to get David to see that he, he's the only one who can win for us." And that and Oliver Letwin and the four of us kept going at him and he said, "Oh well, do you think I could?" We said, "Well look, we'll all go away and we'll each get half a dozen people who say they'll support you and if we can do that, will you reconsider?" So he said, "Okay." So we did that and we got that number of people and we said fine. So we said, "No we'll go and get ten more each," you know and eventually we got enough people to convince him that if he stood he would win, which he did, comfortably in the end. So I'm pretty close to him. Oliver is an old friend from way back and he's got a constituency nearby. George, I didn't get on very well with George initially, but now we get on like a house on fire.
CW		Oh, really? Oh good.
JB		Because I found him, he was a bit abrasive, he's another, he's very clever.
CW		Is he?
JB		Yes he's very clever, he's got a very good brain, but he's also a bit arrogant. And I think some of the rough edges have been knocked off him more recently. I mean all these people are people I know terribly well.
CW		Oh great, so it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting for us, or our clients with them?
JB		Yeah.
CW		Okay, that would be good.
JB	00:45:37	Provided there's something genuine that is likely to interest them and that depends on how I present things. And I would also be quite happy to tell you if I thought that it wouldn't be something.
CW		Oh yes, exactly, which is really important, you don't want to be wasting their time and getting a bad name for yourself, do you?
JB		No. You know, if I don't think that you would be able to persuade them to do what you wanted them to do, then I'd tell you. I mean what I would probably do first, you see, if you gave me a brief, then I would go and see see the responsible Minister and give them a general feel of the thing and say, now would you like to meet them? You know, but do it that way first.
CW		Yes, no, I think that sounds like a sensible idea.
JB		But if I get a complete door being shut, no we can't possibly do that because of this, this and this or we're given undertakings here or there or wherever
CW		It's good to know that in advance isn't it? That's the thing, so you don't waste your time.
JB		So you don't waste your time. There's no point bringing you in.
CW		For a non meeting.
JB		No.
CW	00:46:45	No, exactly. And in terms of kind of getting guidance on kind of upcoming legislation or policy initiatives, do you think that would be possible?
JB		Yes.
CW		Okay. Because that can be very beneficial to a business.
JB		Well I may, can I tell you something very much in confidence?
CW		Yes, of course.
JB		Well it is quite likely that I will go to the Lords.
CW		Right, okay. Congratulations.
JB		No, it's not, nothing is certain in this world, so I don't want that. But it is, well it has been suggested to me by those who would be putting me forward, that they probably will, so that would be nice
CW		Yes, it would be fantastic.
JB		And it also gives me another string to my bow, as far as you're concerned.
CW		Yeah.
JB		Because quite often, the right mover and shaker happens to be in the Lords particularly. And again, the person in the Lords, for example, might be somebody who'd been very much involved on procurement or on communications, or whatever it is that you're looking at.
CW		Yes.
JB	00:47:59	And his view in the Lords might be quite influential.
CW		Yes, yes, I suppose. So you mean to say a former Minister or a former procurement person who's then in the Lords?
JB		Or a former, you know, high powered businessman who's been in that field.
CW		Yes, yes, that's very true. I suppose there's lots of different expertise there that you can kind of tap into.
JB		Yes, that's right.
CW	00:48:22	Yes, that's a good thought. And in terms of how quickly you'd be able to get involved, you mentioned after the election, I didn't know whether you'd be available for any kind of more informal consultancy work before then?
JB		Yes, so long as it doesn't, I'd have to look at each one to see if there was any conflict.
CW		With your other clients you're working for?
JB		Yes, or with my party's view on something, or you know, if you wanted to do something that my party wouldn't like at all, you know, there might be a conflict there. It's all going to be much easier in about six weeks' time, when I suspect it will all be over. Six to eight weeks.
CW		Yes, I suppose it will, won't it?
JB		Yes. I mean I don't think it will go beyond the sixth of May.
CW		No, I don't think anyone is expecting it to are they?
JB		And we're, we're about to go into March.
CW		Yeah. No we haven't got much time that's very true.
JB		The General Election will take about four weeks, so that, frankly approaching anybody in parliament over the run up to the election.
CW		Yes presumably April's out, isn't it, then, yeah?
JB		Yes, April's more or less out. Well April will be, I assume, pretty well entirely consumed by the Election campaign and they won't want to talk to anybody, they won't want to listen to anybody, they'll be so busy trying to hold their seats and getting a majority in parliament that, you know, it's a complete void.
CW		Yeah. So if we were to do anything it would be March really? I just, I know there was a couple of things that they wanted to get off the ground quickly, but I'm not sure if that's too quick, I think I'll have to kind of gauge it and then.
JB	00:50:04	Well, if you let me know what they are, I can tell you whether we can do anything in March, but they're becoming, even now, they're becoming more and more.
CW		The mindset changes I suppose, doesn't it?
JB		Obsessed with winning the election and the campaign and that's what they're all focused on. I mean if you said can you, can I get you an interview with David Cameron in March, I would think that the probable answer is no. He's so busy going round the country (...INAUDIBLE...) be voting for him, you know.
CW		Of course.
JB		It wouldn't be a good time.
CW		No, I think you're right, I think that's very true. It's always a tricky question. But in terms of how much you'd expect to be paid to be on an advisory board, would you be able to give me an idea of maybe your daily rate, or I think for an advisory board we'd be looking to do a meeting every other month or so and I think we'd asses it after six months you know, is that working, do we need a meeting every month for instance? And then with consultancy work, I think that would be on a kind of pro rata basis, depending on how much work is being done.
JB		Well sitting on a board, the going rate now is thirty, thirty five, something like that.
CW		Ok and is, something you'd be happy with?
JB		Yup.
CW		Okay.
JB		But it depends how, what the time commitment is, and if it increases, you know, and if I'm successful and making you very happy, you want to make sure keep me, but that sort of, that sort of order, thirty five thousand.
CW		Okay, well that's good to know it's just useful for me to bear in mind really, what kind of thing you'd be looking for, especially when I want to put the rest of the board together, about thinking about different personalities and different expertise, and of course drawing up a shortlist as well, it's just an important thing to bear in mind. It's an interesting point, if you are going into the Lords, that was something I hadn't thought about at all, about what kind of extra expertise that kind of allows you to bring along, I suppose.
JB		It opens more doors. It opens more doors. I mean, there will be people there that, well a lot of them I know already, because a lot of them are ex-MP's anyway, and even those that aren't ex-MP's are people that I know socially. I know a lot of the members of the Lords. But it is another range of expertise, where perhaps you can go to somebody who has, you know, headed up British Railways, do you see what I mean?
CW		Yes.
JB		Or been a big player in, you know, electricity industry or whatever, you know, it depends what you want to do.
CW		Yeah and I suppose of course, more and more Ministers are ending up being Peers these days, aren't they? It's a rather strange way that it's working out, I don't know if there's going to be any more under the Conservative Government.
JB		What?
CW		Peers who are Ministers so I'm thinking of kind of Lord Mandelson.
JB		Well there may be some, yes. I mean, in fact there is always, for each department in Government, there will always be a Peer who will cover that when those issues are being debated in the Lords.
CW		Yes, yes of course. Yes, you have a spokes, kind of, person on health, is that right?
JB		Yes. So there'll be a Lord spokesman on any particular issue.
CW		Yeah. Oh I see, yeah.
JB		So there are Ministers in the Lords.
CW		Yes exactly, it's not just limited to the Commons is it, where they are hanging out? And also, in terms of where decisions are being made. You know, I think, as far as I know, it goes from the kind of the Commons to the Lords and kind of bounces back and forth, I think, so it kind of gives you another go at something, doesn't it, there's more people to talk to I guess.
JB		Oh yes, yes. Well I know a lot of them anyway, even if I don't go to the Lords.
CW		When do you find out? Is it like getting?
JB		Well its usually, there's a list on the dissolution of a Parliament, it's called the dissolution list and the outgoing Prime Minister will nominate some people, butalso the heads of each of the other parties will.
CW		Are able to.
JB		Are able to, and then the incoming Prime Minister will then almost certainly want to create more Peers, because at the moment we are very heavily outnumbered in the Lords.
CW		Oh really? Okay. And that's because there's been a Labour Government for however many years.
JB		Yes that's right and they've created, all their people have become Lords you see, so we shall want our share to balance that out.
CW		Oh, I see, well it will be an interesting time then to find out and fingers crossed for you. Alright, well what I think I'll do over the next week or so is draw up a kind of shortlist of people. I've got a couple more people to see. And then the, someone from America will either be coming over here or there is an option of flying people over to the States to meet them, of course that will just depend on diaries, I think, and availability. But I think maybe it might be quite nice for you to meet one of the Americans guys and one of the clients.
JB		That will actually be essential and if in the meantime you can give me some more information about the company and the individuals, you know, the board. Because there's not, unusually there's not, there's nothing on Google about.
CW		About the board?
JB		About who your directors are, or?
CW		Well let me tell you a little bit about them. If you like I can send over some information, it's probably easier. But just in terms of our clients, you know, I have to be a little bit careful because of confidentiality and that kind of thing, but so we've got the guys in the Middle East who are investors, so they kind of invest there, but are looking to invest here. We've got a very big.
JB		Where are they in the Middle East?
CW		In the UAE. We've got a very big company in Asia, in Singapore actually, that have kind of contracts to mend ships and are very involved in kind of infrastructure and engineering and they do lots of stuff out there, but again they're quite keen to move into the UK, especially if this high speed railway thing goes ahead, you know, there's quite a lot of contracts.
JB		That almost certainly will go ahead.
CW		Do you think it will? I kind of wondered.
JB		Well I do, because the Labour party wants it and we want it too.
CW		Right, okay.
JB	00:57:00	We want it particularly because we don't want to have a third runway. And in fact we've said quite unequivocally that we will not go ahead with the third runway if we become the Government, but that means it's more, even more important to have the high speed rail link as an alternative to a lot of domestic flights and we will probably look further at building a new airport out in the Thames Estuary.
CW		Oh, do you think that will happen? That's something Boris has kind of been pushing, isn't it?
JB		I think it's quite likely, yes, I think it's probably something whose time has come. And that will involve a lot of H&R. Huge amount.
CW		Well it's a massive project isn't it?
JB		Vast, yes.
CW		I can't almost think how big that will be. It will be great as well.
JB		I think it's about twenty billion.
CW		Goodness me.
JB		Or thereabouts, you know, so it's quite a lot of money.
CW		Yeah. I don't know what really I imagine some of our American clients would be interested in investing in that kind of infrastructure, we have private individuals who are based in the States that kind of invest in various funds and we kind of help them do that, really, by kind of doing due diligence on some of the companies they want to invest in or some of the people, because you need to know kind of who you're dealing with sometimes.
JB		I do. And you should know I've got quite a lot of family contacts in the banking world......
CW	00:58:44	Oh have you?
JB		And my daughter is in the Middle East ......
JB		That's why I was asking where your Middle Eastern clients were from, they may know them.
CW		Yes. Alright, well let me, I'll go through your CV and I'll speak to my director about it.
JB		Well there's quite a lot in there.
CW		Well there is, exactly, there's an awful lot of detail in there and I feel I need to sit down and read it properly.
JB		Do you want a spare copy?
CW		Yes, that's kind of you, thank you.
JB		Now where did you get my name from?
CW		Well I asked someone to do some research in the office and just come up with a list of well connected people that kind of do consultancy work and then your name came up.
JB		Right.
CW		So I'm glad we got the right kind of person. It's always tricky, isn't it, when you've got to call someone and say is this the kind of thing you might be interested in, you have to be fully prepared for a no, so I was pleased you were intrigued enough to meet me.
JB		Yes.
CW		Thank you for your time and thanks for coming in, and I'll be in touch with you in the next week or so.
JB		It's quite interesting actually, I've, I've had quite a few approaches recently. Yes, well people know I'm going, and so.
CW		How do you feel about going?
JB		I think this looks like fun. You know, it looks like something that I could get involved with. I recently also had an approach from a major trade association in the UK, that said would I become a consultant to them?
CW		Does it sound like something you might be interested in?
JB		Yes, yes, and they're offering quite attractive terms too.
CW		Oh right, oh well let me know if we need to become more attractive on our terms.
JB		Well I think we could probably manage the two, because I don't think they'd necessarily conflict, in fact they might actually work quite well with each other, but that remains to be seen.
CW		Yes.
JB		Well I'll wait to hear from you. When do you think your people will be coming over?
CW		Sometime in the next couple of weeks I would have thought, probably not next week, I would imagine maybe the week after.
JB		Yes I will be around then. I'm going off skiing on Easter week
CW		Of course, yeah, yeah.
JB		If that's alright?
CW	01:02:38	Oh yeah, absolutely fine, enjoy yourself.
JB		The snow's very good this year.
CW		Where have you got to be?
JB		Very near, yes it's in Vine Street, my next meeting.
CW		Oh brilliant. That's handy ...
JB		That's my next meeting, my next meeting is the Gold Mining of which I'm chairman.
CW		That must be very interesting, working for them.
JB		It is, it's fascinating actually, we are the only people with mining licenses in Iceland.
CW		You know, I wouldn't have even thought about gold mining in Iceland. Is there quite a big market for it?
JB		Yes, we have fifteen and a half thousand square kilometres under license and we are the only people who've got a license at the moment in Iceland. There was gold mining in Iceland in the early part of last century and it was a German company that mined quite successfully. And then, when the war came along, they were kicked out by the Icelanders and it had never been restarted for some reason I don't understand.
CW		Oh I see, so it's just been sitting there really.
JB		Extraordinary, so it's been sitting there. So one of our main tranches of Iceland that we've got, is the area where they were mining all that time ago and they produce quite a lot of gold.
CW		Really? How did you get involved with that, were you, did you have a kind of gold background?
JB		No, I've never done anything in mining before, but it was, I've got a house in [EU country] and one of my neighbours, a woman, she's been in gold mining and she, she was involved with the Icelanders, and she said would I come in and help her and would I help her get the finance? And in fact, I introduced, well all, pretty well all the financiers that have gone into the project to date, have been introduced by me
CW		Oh really? Oh great, that's good. Very handy, worked out well didn't it?
JB		It's worked out very well. So I'm a shareholder, a modest shareholder.
CW		Sounds like such an interesting project to be involved in and presumably you get to go to Iceland quite a lot as well?
JB		Yes, it's, a lot of people go there for holiday. I'd go once.
CW		Yeah I don't, I can't imagine going there more than once.
JB		It's very barren.
CW		Is it?
JB		Yes, very few trees, although there are some in Reykjavik, but that's about it. Otherwise it's pretty bleak. It's pretty cold most of the time. On the other hand, the scenery is, is quite striking.
CW		I'd love to go and see the Northern Lights. That's the thing I would be really excited to go and see in Iceland.
JB		You have to go at right time of year.
CW		Yes, well I think you have to go in kind of January/February don't you, and it would be freezing.
JB		Well it's not as cold as you might think, because the, it gets the Gulf Stream.
CW	01:05:57	[Carry on talking about Iceland and wrap things up]

19.  Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, 22 June 2010

I thank you for your letter of 2nd June, enclosing the certified transcripts of my conversations with the undercover reporter.

I have studied this, and can confirm that it seems to me to be largely an accurate version of our discussions. There are, however, two matters which puzzle me.

Firstly, I have a clear recollection that at some point in our discussions, I made it clear that I was more interested in joining an Advisory Board than engaging in parliamentary lobbying. To a degree, this is reinforced by the length of information provided by me relating primarily to my business experience rather than my parliamentary career. You will have noted for example, that when I was pressed on my experience at t[he Department of Transport, I pointed out that this was all a long time ago.

Secondly, I am puzzled that my recollection of our conversations showed that when the reporter asked me about the possibility of entertaining Ministers and or Civil Servants, I responded by saying that this would be improper and contrary to the Parliamentary Rules. This does not appear in the transcript, but I did make it clear on Page 7, that Ministers and Civil Servants did not like being wined and dined etc.

These two issues are my principal differences with the transcript. However, it is only fair for me to say that at the time of the meeting I was suffering from the after effects of [an illness] I suffered at the end of January, in respect of which I have spent three stays in [name of] Hospital. The most recent of which was last month. I am pleased to say that my last visit showed that I had largely recovered ... but that I had been left with [health effects] and a degree of loss of memory.

On Page 2 of your letter, you mention my comments on the difficulty of a serving MP acting in measures of this nature where a financial interest existed. It seems to me that under the Rules this could occur where a Member has a financial interest in a Company in his or her constituency, employing perhaps, large members of his constituents. In such a case, it seems to me that the Member could argue in favour of the Company, provided that the interest had been disclosed in the Register of Members' Interests, and again disclosed verbally during a debate.

In relation to Kvaerner, I may have used somewhat colourful language [material not relevant to this inquiry]. I had no personal contact with the businessman concerned but I did advise a group of his pensioners and employees together with other Members of Parliament who had constituents in the Kvaerner Group, on how they might best shame the businessman into providing proper protection to his UK employees. We advised them to suggest that a failure to protect members of his pension fund would be likely to lead to protests against Kvaerner, were they to seek to obtain contracts from Public Authorities both in the UK and the EU. This strategy was extremely successful and I am proud of my role in it.

So far as private Members' Bills are concerned I do not accept that the implication of my statement implied that some private Members' Bills were not pro bono and I do not accept that it would be reasonable to draw such a conclusion.

So far as informal consultancy is concerned I made it clear that I did not think this was likely to occur but that I would have to be careful if I did accept some form of engagement before the Election and that I would have to ensure that no improper conflict of interest occurred. I went on to say that in view of the imminence of a General Election, I doubted that there would be any likelihood that Ministers would be interested in talking to anyone at the time.

It is correct that I said on Page 14 that I had had a number of approaches for work after I left Parliament but I can advise you that I have not secured any such remunerated employment and have not heard further from the Trade Association.

My Chairmanship of the Gold Mining Company[532] is indeed a reference to my Register Entry as a Director and Shareholder of Gold Island Ltd, and that it is still currently unremunerated.

I hope that these responses are helpful, and I would be happy to discuss them further when we meet.

I am taking a brief holiday [location] as from Friday 25th June and will be returning on 2nd July.

I look forward to hearing from you.

22 June 2010

20.  Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 25 June 2010

Thank you for your letter of 22 June responding to mine of 2 June following receipt of the certified transcripts of your conversations with the undercover reporter.

I was most grateful for this response. I was very sorry to learn about your ill health earlier in the year. While I am very glad to hear of your recovery, I recognise that your ill health may have affected your memory of these conversations. I hope that I am right in assuming, therefore, that you accept that you did not in fact say you were more interested in the advisory board than in parliamentary lobbying, and that you did not say that entertaining Ministers and the civil service would be improper. On the former point, it does appear from the transcripts that you expected that you would be asked to make introductions to contacts. That might suggest that you were prepared to be involved in that form of parliamentary lobbying once you had left Parliament.

On the same matter of comparing your recollection with the transcript, I should also draw attention to the statement you made at point 2(iii) in your letter of 24 March, where you say that you indicated at the end of the interview that you were unsure whether you would be willing to undertake work for the interviewer's company and would need a great deal more information about them. I do not think that there is such a statement from you at the end of the interview, although you are recorded as saying (on page 14): "It's quite interesting actually … I think this looks like fun. You know, it looks like something that I could get involved with. I recently also had an approach from a major trade association in the UK that said would I become a consultant to them? … Well I think we could probably manage the two, because I don't think they'd necessarily conflict, in fact they might actually work quite well with each other, but that remains to be seen … Well I'll wait to hear from you." Do you accept that your recollection on this point is not borne out by the transcript?

In response to your other points, it might be helpful if I made the following observations:

Page 3—the difficulties of consultancy work for a serving MP. I have noted the points you have made. Given that the prohibition in the Rules of the House is directed against advocacy as opposed to consultancy, I would be grateful if you would explain why you consider that sitting MPs would now find it quite difficult to engage in consultancy. I am asking you this because I may need to consider whether you were exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs engaging in consultancy in order to strengthen the case for employing a former Member in this role.

In relation to your evidence about Kvaerner, do you consider that, as well as using somewhat colourful language, you exaggerated your role in this matter, since your statement appeared to imply that you had taken direct action with the individual himself?

I recognise that you do not accept that your reference to all your private Members' bills being pro-bono implied that there were some Members who did not act on this basis. But it would be helpful to know your reasons why you do not think this conclusion should be drawn from your statement.

I have noted your response on the offer of informal consultancy work before the election. Could you let me know whether you accept that you did indeed agree to consider such work and that you would have expected to have received a fee for it?

Finally, you asked about a meeting. I am, of course, always ready to meet informally Members who are subject to an inquiry. I am also happy to take formal oral evidence from a Member if they so wish. Otherwise, I would normally consider towards the end of my inquiries whether I think it would be helpful in concluding the inquiry for me to take formal evidence from the Member. Subject to your wishes, I will consider this further once I have concluded taking written evidence, which I am doing through this correspondence and for which I have been most grateful.

If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, it would be most helpful.

25 June 2010

21.  Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, 15 July 2010

I thank you for your letter of 25th June which was awaiting me on my return from a brief holiday.

So far as your first paragraph is concerned, I must say that I remain puzzled why there appear to be a number of discrepancies between my own recollection of discussions and the detail of the transcript. Nevertheless I see no reason to make a major issue of this matter since as you suggest the overall conclusion which can be drawn from the transcripts is that I would be interested in both membership of an advisory board and involvement in making introductions to both ministers and business contacts once I had left parliament.

On the question of entertaining ministers and civil servants although the transcript does not contain my own recollection of the use of the word improper, it does on page 7 record my giving considerable detail on the way that such introductions should be made and suggests that it would not be helpful to engage in entertaining such as wining and dining. This discussion is concluded and reinforced by the discussion saying "JB Yes, they are very cautious about meeting anybody outside their offices" "CW Oh right, so it's very hard to get them out for lunch?" "JB, so you don't take them out to lunch" "CW No, exactly, you might alarm them" "JB Yes that would be the wrong thing to do and actually even with ministers because we are so much scrutinized now, etc, etc"

As regards my indication that I would be unsure whether I would be willing to undertake work for the interviewer's Company or their clients, this is stated by me very clearly, on Page 6. Although the transcript does not include the phrase 'seeking due diligence; despite my own recollection is that I did use such a phrase. More importantly, I gave an example of a previous similar approach to me which I ultimately declined because I was not satisfied with the information they gave to me. This issue is referred to later in the discussion on Page 12 where the interviewer stated that someone from America would be coming to England with a view to my meeting "one of the American guys and one of the clients" The transcript then shows me as saying "that will actually be essential and if in the meantime you can give me some more information about the company and the individuals, etc, etc"

On your further points, I would comment as follows

1.  It is a fact that sitting MPs now find it difficult to engage in consultancy. This is because a large proportion of members of the public and the press now take a view that it is improper for MPs to have any outside interest. It had never occurred to me that my comments on this matter could be interpreted as exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs in order to strengthen the case for employing a former member in this role. I would take great exception to this interpretation on my comments.

2.  In relation to Kvaerner I may, in fact, have underplayed my role in this matter. The details of this are, that I was approached by [name], a former director of [company name] (KPF Pensioner), who was one of my constituents, and was heading up an action group because of what KPF was proposing as far as British KPF pensioners were concerned. Together, we devised a strategy to embarrass KPF by proceeding with a parliamentary lobby group, given the very large number of members of parliament who had significant numbers of constituents who were KPF pensioners. I enclose, herewith, a list of the relevant MPs (60 in all) which you will see included large numbers of Ministers, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown! Through [name], I made it clear that I would seek the support of these MPs in order of persuade Kvaerner that it would not be in their best interests to alienate such a powerful group of politicians. This action led to the Chairman of the Trustee board (appointed by the Norwegian board) together with other representatives of Kvaerner to ask for a meeting with me in my office. I enclose, herewith, in confidence, the minutes of that meeting.[533] As a result of this I was requested to "hold fire" whilst additional funding and an improved investment strategy might be arranged. Following this intervention a satisfactory solution was subsequently agreed.

3.  My statement that all my private Members' Bills had been pro bono was made simply to head off any accusations that I may have been trying to make personal gain from such a Bill. I was, therefore, defending myself rather than seeking to impugn the actions of other parliamentary colleagues and I take great exception to this suggestion.

4.  I neither agreed nor disagreed to carry out informal paid consultancy work before the Election, or indeed after it. I regarded the interview as a preliminary discussion for both parties and in my case, I had made it clear that I would need a great deal more information about the Company and its clients before I could give any commitment of any sort.

I thought you might be interested to see details of the journalist [name], who conducted the interview with me, and I therefore enclose an extract from Google.[534]

With regard to a meeting between us, I think this might be useful when you have considered all the evidence I have made available to you.

15 July 2010

22.  Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010

Thank you for your letter of 15 July responding to mine of 25 June about the inquiry into your discussions with the undercover reporter which you referred to me.

I was most grateful for this response. The following is my response to some of your points:

1.  I have noted that you agreed that you offered to make introductions to Ministers and business contacts once you had left Parliament. I assume that you agree that this constitutes "lobbying", although if that is not so please let me know.

2.  I have noted the points you made about entertaining Ministers and civil servants on page 7 of the interview transcript, which was most helpful.

3.  I have noted the points you made on pages 6 and 12 about the need to find out more about the company. Your recollection was that you made these at the end of the interview, but I have noted closely the references you made earlier on in the interview.

4.  I was very grateful for your responses about difficulties for sitting MPs taking on consultancies and about private Members' Bills. It was most helpful to have your responses to both points.

5.  Thank you too for the fuller information about your actions in respect of Kvaerner and the Kvaerner Pension Fund. It was most helpful to have a note of your meeting with the Chairman of the Trustees of that fund on 10 March 2006. [535]I may need subsequently to consider whether it is necessary to include that in the evidence for this inquiry, and I note that it was sent to the Pension Regulator and posted on the Kvaerner Pension Fund Association website. There is no reference in that note to your advice to the pension fund members that they should suggest that, if they were not protected, there would be likely to be protests against Kvaerner were they to seek to obtain contracts from public authorities both in the UK and the EU, as set out in your letter to me of 22 June. Could you help me on whether you gave that advice before the meeting in March, and whether, to the best of your knowledge, that advice was followed before that meeting (where you supported the Trustees' request for a reduction in political activity in view of the delicate nature of the negotiations)? Finally, could you confirm the accuracy of your statement to the undercover reporter that Kvaerner subsequently paid £25million into the pension fund?

6.  I have noted that you believe you neither agreed nor disagreed to provide informal consultancy before the Election. I will need in due course to weigh this alongside what you are recorded to have said on page 10 of the transcript where you appear to say that you would be available for informal consultancy work subject to looking at each one to "see if there was any conflict"; and to your suggestion that if the interviewer let you know what they were: "I can tell you whether we can do anything in March, but they're becoming, even now they're becoming more and more…Obsessed with winning the election and the campaign and that's what they're all focused on."

7.  I was grateful for a copy of the Google page in respect of the undercover reporter.[536] I do not propose to include this page in the evidence for this inquiry, but if there were any matters which you considered relevant to my inquiry please let me know and I will consider this further.

Subject to any further comments you may wish to make, I consider the one remaining matter on which I need your help is in the final questions I have put to you about the Kvaerner pension discussions. Once I have received your comments on these, I will review all the evidence and consider whether I need ask you to provide formal oral evidence. At present, I think it unlikely I will need to do so. If there are matters on which you would like to give formal oral evidence, please let me know. Otherwise, I would hope to be at the point of concluding my inquiries into this matter. As you may know, I am currently conducting a number of inquiries on the basis of the undercover reporter's interviews, and I have decided that I should submit a memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on all of these inquiries.

[Procedural matters.]

It is difficult to be precise about timing at this stage, but I think it is very unlikely that I will have completed my memorandum on all of these inquiries before the end of the summer recess. I am grateful for your continued help and look forward to hearing from you, I would hope within the next two weeks.

20 July 2010

23.  Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, received 2 August 2010

I thank you for your letter of 20th July, which was waiting for me on my return to England yesterday.

My responses to your latest points are as follows:

1. I regard introductions as part of what might be undertaken as lobbying, but full blown lobbying includes much more, including extensive advocacy and promotion of the client, which would be beyond what I would either wish or be able to offer

2.  Noted

3.  Noted

4.  Noted

5.  My action which precipitated the meeting on 10th March 2006 was because I had suggested to[ ...] and other constituents, that they should make it clear to the new Chairman of Trustees (appointed by the Company) that failure by the company to meet its legal obligations to the Pension Scheme would result in a vigorous political campaign in the House of Commons. This resulted in their seeking the meeting with me and a request by the Company to hold off political activity whilst negotiations took place. I can tell you, in confidence, that Kvaerner have subsequently paid considerably more than £25m into the pension fund.

...

6. I was trying to explain to the interviewer that there was no point in thinking about setting up a consultancy before the Election.

7. I am pleased that you fund the copy of the Google page helpful. It shows the skill of this young woman in putting words into an interviewee's mouth! See 6 above!

I hope that you now have all the information that you may require and will look forward to hearing from you and seeing the relevant aspects of your enquiries.

Received 2 August 2010

---

3 522   Not included in the written evidence Back

4 523   Not included in the written evidence Back

5 524   WE 18,00:46:45 Back

6 525   Not included in the written evidence Back

7 526   WE 18, 00:25:37 Back

8 527   WE 18, 00:28:55 Back

9 528   WE 18, 00:30:20 Back

1 529  0 WE 18, 00:48:22  Back

1 530  1 WE 18, 00:58:44 Back

1 531  2 WE 18, 01:02:38 Back

1 532  3 WE 18, 01:02:38 Back

1 533  4 Not included in the written evidence.  Back

1 534  5 Not included in the written evidence.  Back

1 535  6 Not included in the written evidence. Back

536   Not included in the written evidence.  Back

---

Prepared 9 December 2010