Examination of Witness (Questions 325-339)
Lord Truscott
13 MARCH 2009
Q325 Chairman: Lord Truscott, thank
you very much indeed for your time this morning. As you know,
the purpose of the Sub-Committee's inquiry is to investigate a
complaint made by Baroness Royall, based on the allegations printed
by the Sunday Times and supported by the evidence of recordings
of transcripts provided by the Sunday Times and Hansard.
We have noted that you and your solicitor have provided us with
some corrections, which we have looked at. What we want to do
today is to establish the facts before coming to our conclusions
based on our interpretation of the Code of Conduct. We will be
reporting to the Committee for Privileges where there will be,
of course, a right of appeal. What we want to do is really to
hear from you and you alone this morning, because I should stress
that the Sub-Committee's procedures as set out in the fourth Report
of 2007-08 by the Committee for Privileges specifies that respondents
are expected to answer for themselves and not through their advisers.
I should also emphasise that this is not a trial; we are not a
court of law and these are not criminal proceedings. We are mandated
by the Privileges Committee to operate with a large measure of
informality but we are deeply conscious of our procedural fairness
and we intend to be very fair. Again I want to emphasise that
the Sub-Committee's purpose is to establish whether there has
been a breach of the Code of Conduct and we are not considering
the behaviour of the Sunday Times newspaper. This evidence
session is held in private but, as you can see, a full transcript
is being taken, which you will have the opportunity to see and
correct, and it may be referred to or published at the discretion
of the Sub-Committee and the Committee for Privileges. As it is
on record, I think we need to take care when referring to the
evidence to give the references and page numbers so that it is
clear to the reader which pages are being referred to. Is that
clear? Is there anything you wish to clarify further?
Lord Truscott: No. I understand these
proceedings are taking place under parliamentary privilege, is
that right?
Q326 Chairman: Yes, indeed.
Lord Truscott: Fine.
Q327 Chairman: Before we start our
questioning, would you like to make an opening statement?
Lord Truscott: I have not really prepared
an opening statement but the first thing I want to do is repeat
the apology that I made in my first letter of 26 January where
I said that I would like to profoundly apologise for any actions
of mine which have caused any embarrassment or affected the high
reputation of the House of Lords. I wrote then "... for this,
I am thoroughly mortified and chastened," and I still feel
that way. I do feel that the allegations in the Sunday Times
against me are false and obviously now I am in the hands of the
Committee but I would just like to stress that, as far as I am
concerned, I am not part of a group of four. This is an individual
case. The allegations are very serious.
Q328 Chairman: Indeed.
Lord Truscott: I do understand the effect
on the House of Lords but in my case they are false. I hope that
the Committee, looking at the evidence, will see that is clear.
Chairman: One thing I would clarify is we are
not looking at the four; each complaint has been looked at individually.
Of course, as I would stress again, we want to establish the facts
and that is why we are keen to talk to you to take you through
them and understand what you meant. Without much ado I will ask
Lord Irvine to ask questions.
Q329 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Lord Truscott,
can I tell you the route that I want to travel through the documents
so that you can get your papers in order. First of all, I want
to ask you some questions about the telephone call you had with
Michael Gillard when you learnt that you had been the victim of
a Sunday Times sting, so that is the first document I am
going to put to you, so you can have it conveniently by you for
first reference. Secondly, I am going to go to what you wrote
in your letter of 26 January to Baroness Prashar, our Chair.
Lord Truscott: Yes.
Lord Irvine of Lairg: Thirdly, I am going to
go to the Hansard transcript of both of your meetings with the
undercover journalists. So there is no mystery about it, what
I want to do is I want to compare, from the conversations with
Gillard and the letter to Baroness Prashar, what your knowledge
was of what you might do and might not do under the Code, and
I would like to contrast that with what you actually said to the
undercover journalists that you were willing to do. That will
require some careful consideration of the transcript when you
will have an opportunity to give every explanation of what you
meant by what you are recorded as having said. Could we go, first
of all, then to the Gillard letter—
Baroness Manningham-Buller: Call.
Q330 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Forgive
me, the Gillard call—which starts at [CD1] page 13 of 28.
Could we go to page 15.
Lord Truscott: Yes. Fine.
Q331 Lord Irvine of Lairg: You will
see about a third of the way in it is put to you by Gillard, "But
you did agree, and these are your words, to facilitate the amendment
by talking to people who could affect that aim ..." Your
reply is "No, no". So that was the position that you
adopted with Gillard, that you did not agree to do that, that
is correct, is it not?
Lord Truscott: That is correct, yes.
I can actually cross-reference it, if I may—
Q332 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I am going
to take you through everything, I can assure you, Lord Truscott.
Lord Truscott: Yes, that is correct.
Q333 Lord Irvine of Lairg: So you
denied that you had agreed to facilitate the amendment they desire
by talking to people who could achieve that. Was that because
you knew that would be contrary to the Code?
Lord Truscott: No. What I disagreed with,
and if you look at—
Q334 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I am just
talking about your conversation with Gillard at the moment. I
am asking what you meant by what you said to Gillard?
Lord Truscott: I agreed that I talked
about facilitating the amendment, because that is clearly in the
transcript. What does facilitate mean, it is to make easier or
to make less difficult. That was what I thought I was offering
to do as a potential adviser with the company to assist them in
the lobbying process and so to facilitate their work.
Q335 Lord Irvine of Lairg: What did
you mean by "No, no"?
Lord Truscott: What I meant was by talking
to people who could affect that aim the implication was that I
would lobby directly people to achieve the aim that the company
was laying out. You have to bear in mind that this was an entrapment
operation whereby the journalists were trying to put words into
my mouth. Do not forget what the story was—
Q336 Lord Irvine of Lairg: We are
very familiar with that.
Lord Truscott: Yes. The story was when
I was rung by Gary O'Donoghue at 10 o'clock at night on the Saturday
before this story was broken, Gary O'Donoghue from the BBC said,
"The Sunday Times are saying that you would move amendments
for cash". That was an absolute lie. I could see from the
line of questioning of this journalist when he rang me on the
Friday—
Q337 Lord Irvine of Lairg: That is
before any Sunday Times article appeared?
Lord Truscott: Yes, that is right, but
obviously I knew that the Sunday Times article would come
out. It was quite clear to me that the Sunday Times had
already decided on the story and the story was that I was going
to move amendments for cash. As is clear from the transcript,
what I was talking about was facilitating the lobbying process.
I was not talking about directly lobbying people.
Q338 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I think
that is your answer, Lord Truscott. I think what you are saying
is that by "No, no", you meant that you would not be
lobbying yourself and that you thought the significance of his
question was that you had agreed to lobby?
Lord Truscott: That is right. I saw it
as he was trying to entrap me into agreeing to say something that
I did not say. We will come on to the transcript but I made three
things absolutely clear in the transcript.
Q339 Lord Irvine of Lairg: We are
going to do the transcripts.
Lord Truscott: I know but I will say
it now.
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