Examination of Witness (Questions 380-399)
Lord Truscott
13 MARCH 2009
Q380 Lord Irvine of Lairg: A slip
of the tongue.
Lord Truscott:—it may be a slip, but
there was only one meeting, a meeting in July with the Bill team.
Q381 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Were you
concerned with issues concerning the roll-out of smart meters,
anything of that sort?
Lord Truscott: It was not a question
of concerning, it was a question of being informed. During the
course of the Energy Bill, the Minister responsible, Lord Hunt,
did come out with a statement and indicative timetable of a ten
year roll-out for smart meters and a two year implementation period.
That I picked up from Hansard.
Q382 Lord Irvine of Lairg: If you
go two-thirds of the way into page 7, where you say, "So
I am perfectly happy with doing that but you just have to be a
bit careful about paid advocacy", you regard paid advocacy
there as equivalent to moving an amendment in the House, do you?
Lord Truscott: That is right. Or promoting
an issue if you are paid by a company.
Q383 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Lobbying.
Paid advocacy would include lobbying, in your understanding?
Lord Truscott: In my understanding, paid
advocacy would be lobbying, it would be promoting an issue, seeking
to influence anybody as a result of being paid. As I said in the
earlier paragraph, what I was talking about was picking up the
phone and saying, "What's happening?" Again, it was
finding out information. That is really what I was offering to
do, and offering advice. Not lobbying or getting involved in—
Lord Irvine of Lairg: You have been very, very
clear. I think Lady Manningham-Buller has a question.
Q384 Baroness Manningham-Buller:
The Code, Lord Truscott, also forbids exercising parliamentary
influence for money.
Lord Truscott: Yes.
Q385 Baroness Manningham-Buller:
Can you describe to us whether you see a distinction between these
two things?
Lord Truscott: I think my solicitor,
my lawyers, went through this in quite some detail and I do not
want to get into an esoteric discussion about the nature of influence,
but I think there is a distinction between influence, that presumably
all Members of the House of Lords have to some degree by nature
of them being Members of the House of Lords, and being in this
place and in this House; and parliamentary influence, which is
influencing the business of the House, whether it is legislation,
asking questions, speaking. To my view, the layman's view, the
Code of Conduct is saying that you should not exert parliamentary
influence as a result of being in the employ of any company, i.e.
you should not ask questions, you should not move amendments,
you should not try to influence legislation as a result of being
a paid consultant or whatever. So that is parliamentary influence.
If you say to me, "Can you define the difference between
influence and parliamentary influence", then I think that
is probably not a question for me to try to attempt to define.
Q386 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Could
we go to the middle of page 8? You are asked directly in relation
to the proposed amendment, whether it could be left to you to
identify the right people, to move the amendment and that you
would coach them. You see that?
Lord Truscott: Sorry, which bit?
Q387 Lord Irvine of Lairg: More than
a third of the way in on page 8.
Lord Truscott: Sorry, yes, I have got
it.
Q388 Lord Irvine of Lairg: "Man:
I say that because say, for example, an issue such as we have
here, is it possible for us to just leave it with you to identify
the right people and coach them?" Pausing there, that would
have been the perfect opportunity, would it not have been, for
you, given your understanding of the Code, to say, "Goodness
me, I could not possibly coach them"?
Lord Truscott: You see, you have to—
Q389 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Would
it be the perfect opportunity to say that?
Lord Truscott: With respect, you have
to understand what was going on here in terms of the type of meeting.
I was trying to be helpful and co-operative, and we were exploring
the possibility of developing a business relationship. I was not
going to say to these people, "You are really talking rubbish,
you know, you really do not understand what you are about."
I was trying to lay down the ground rules, establishing no lobbying,
no paid advocacy and all the rest, but steer them towards what
their role should be and what my role should be. They were pleading
ignorance. You had on one level that this was a professional and
politically inspired entrapment operation—
Q390 Lord Irvine of Lairg: We have
that well.
Lord Truscott:—in the run-up to an
election. On the other hand, you have me trying to have an exploratory
meeting with these people to see whether we could work together
and see whether it would be appropriate.
Q391 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Pausing
there, I understand all of that, but if you were seeking to lay
down the ground rules, I repeat my question, why do you not say
to them, "I could not possibly coach them. That is quite
wrong and I would not do it."? You do not need to say it
offensively, you are just laying down the ground rules, as you
say. Why not say that?
Lord Truscott: Because I had done that
extensively all during the meeting and I thought I had made myself
absolutely clear. If I can—you probably will not want me
to—I say in the first meeting on pages 11 and 12, "I
have never seen my role as lobbying. I am not personally a lobbyist.
I don't actually lobby. What I will do if someone wanted—a
client, for example—is advise—it's lobbying companies
that lobby. I don't mind advising lobbyists, but I don't personally
lobby."
Q392 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Lord Truscott,
I am not going to ignore these passages, I am taking you through
the transcript.
Lord Truscott: The—
Q393 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Forgive
me. Before you said these things, which were an impeccable statement,
if you like, of the boundaries between permissible and impermissible,
all I am asking you is why you did not say to them, when they
suggested something manifestly inappropriate, "No, that simply
is not on"?
Lord Truscott: Because, as I have said,
it was an exploratory discussion and we were looking at whether
we could work together. I do say later on, when they ask me, "You
won't find officials to make the pitch yourself?", I say
"No, I wouldn't ..."—
Q394 Lord Irvine of Lairg: We are
coming to that.
Lord Truscott: If I could say for the
record: "No, I wouldn't do that. That's the other thing to
make clear. I don't lobby myself. I don't mind being employed
by them, but I advise the lobbyists rather than doing the pitch
myself. I am happy to find out information, but that's a slightly
different thing. That is just my view." So I make it absolutely
clear during the course of the meeting, but if someone is discussing
with you about possibly working together on a consultancy basis,
you do not say, "Go away and boil your head, you are talking
absolute nonsense ..."—
Q395 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I was
not suggesting you should say that.
Lord Truscott: It is not my approach.
It was not my approach. I am a very diplomatic person. Sometimes
I do give politicians' answers. It is not in my genetic code to
basically turn round to someone and say, "No", especially
in this sort of scenario where you are talking about possibly
working together, "No, you are talking absolute nonsense",
because the meeting will come to a very swift end if you do that.
Q396 Lord Irvine of Lairg: What you
are doing, if I may say so, Lord Truscott, is setting up an Aunt
Sally to knock it down, because I am not suggesting you should
have been offensive to them. My sole suggestion to you is that
you should have said to them, "I have to tell you that coaching
them is not on."
Lord Truscott: We all have our different
approaches and our different styles. I did say in my first letter
that on occasions my language was loose and naive, and obviously
if I had known I was on the record and I was being recorded, I
would have been a lot more careful the way I constructed what
I said. But, even so, having come away from that meeting, and
since, like yourselves, having gone over this transcript a hundred
times, I feel clear in my own mind that what I was saying to them
during the course of the meeting and laying down the ground rules
on lobbying, moving amendments and on paid advocacy, I was making
clear that I would only act within the rules. During the course
of the meeting I made that clear in my own way, using my own language.
You can criticise that, and obviously in the circumstances it
is very easy to do so, I can criticise myself, but I thought I
made it clear in my own way what my understanding of the rules
was, that I would only act within the rules and that was in my
own mind and, looking at the transcript, I think that was clear.
Q397 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Do you
accept, looking back, it would have been much better if you had
repudiated the suggestion you would coach other parliamentarians?
Lord Truscott: I think in retrospect,
obviously, that is not on. I think—Sorry, I will leave it
at that.
Q398 Lord Irvine of Lairg: What you
go on to say is, "Well, I think it would—I mean, it
should normally be a sort of partnership, as it were, you know.
Man: So you would want some input from us as well? PT: I mean,
normally, normally, that's the way it works, yes. I mean, I can
sort of identify people and talk to them and sort of talk with
officials and all this sort of thing but normally I would work
with the organisation." Reading this, it does sound to me
as if this is a discussion about a division of labour with both
of you doing the same thing; they working and you working, in
order frankly to persuade of the merits of the desired amendment.
That is how it reads.
Lord Truscott: No. Well, that is your
interpretation. I understand, Lord Irvine, some sections of this
text can be taken out of context, some of the transcripts can
be taken out of context. You are right, I was talking about a
division of labour, but my division of labour was that I would
be identifying people and they would be doing the lobbying. That
was the sort of partnership I was trying to describe there. As
I say, these people were pretending they did not know how the
thing worked, how they should operate as public affairs consultants
in a legislative environment. So I was explaining to them—the
earlier thing, as you said, I should have made clear and said,
"This is how it works"—and I was trying to make
clear to them in my way that this would be a partnership. Because,
don't forget, they were trying to get me to say, "So you
will go away and do it all for us? You'll move the amendments.
You'll lobby people." This was the entrapment part. And I
said, "No, no, no, I am not prepared to do that. What we
are talking about here is a partnership whereby I would identify
the people, I would give you advice but you would do the lobbying."
Q399 Lord Irvine of Lairg: There
is nothing in the passage which I have just read to you which
suggests that you would not do any lobbying but only they would.
The language suggests an equal division of labour, the organisation
and you doing the same things in relation to different people.
Lord Truscott: Can I contest that—
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