TUESDAY 21 MARCH 2000

MR TONY BALDRY, MP

  20. No trouble at all over that?
  (Mr Baldry) No. As I said, there is nothing that I know to Mr Zaiwalla's detriment.

  21. But would you do the same again in the circumstances? In the light of all this that has come out?
  (Mr Baldry) Obviously, when I gave a reference it was against the background of a telephone call from the chairman of the Conservative Party in London, and I knew nothing to Sarosh Zaiwalla's detriment. Of course, what I would want to ensure, having seen all this, is that none of it is true, and that clearly would be the case. Obviously these are serious allegations which Mr Milne has made and obviously I would wish to check those out, but at the time I gave the reference I knew nothing to Mr Zaiwalla's detriment. No one had raised any issues with me at all. I have not spoken to Lord Feldman, the Parliamentary Commissioner I believe has, and these are matters of course which you can put to Lord Feldman if necessary, but I understand that he approached a number of senior people, and I would imagine amongst that group would have been senior members of the legal profession, members of the bar, judges and otherwise, who, as I understand it from the Parliamentary Commissioner, sent references to Lord Feldman. So clearly there was at that time a body of support for such a recommendation for Mr Zaiwalla.

  22. Mr Baldry, I notice that the reference which you wrote on 14 January 1997 is on your headed paper as a Member of Parliament rather than a minister, and I am sure that was the correct way to do it. Can I ask, either as a minister at the time or as an experienced Member of Parliament, how often would you find yourself writing a reference to someone like the Lord Chancellor's Department? Was it an exceptional or a routine thing?
  (Mr Baldry) I think it is neither actually. As colleagues will know, references come in a number of different ways. Sometimes we as individuals will put forward constituents for recommendation because of representations which have been made to us, sometimes, as in this instance, somebody else may well say that they are putting forward someone, would I give a supporting reference. I honestly cannot say in the 18 years in which I have been in this House how many times I have given support to a recommendation for an honour, but it was clearly not something at the time which was so strange or untoward that, as I have said earlier, I clearly put my mind to it. Here was someone whom I knew, Lord Feldman, who was a respectable senior member of my party, telephoning me asking me to provide a reference for someone I knew. As you can see, the reference is comparatively short, I just simply acceded to the request. I fully accept, and I repeat to the Committee, that I should either have written to the Lord Chancellor's Department to tell him of the existence of the loan, or told Basil Feldman of the existence of the loan, and I just clearly did not put my mind to those matters. I fully accept for both those omissions, I deserve to be criticised.

  23. I do appreciate your opening comments which you have just repeated about accepting the Commissioner's conclusions. We understand that the cheque was banked on 2 January, I do not know when physically it had been banked, clearly over Christmas there may have been a delay between the bank receiving it and crediting it, and that was about 12 days before the reference was written. Presumably, if your postbag is anything like mine, the request for the reference must have come in some days before the reference was given?
  (Mr Baldry) No. Two things. Firstly, I honestly cannot remember whether, as I have said in the statement, when I got the cheque I simply put it in the post to the bank to be credited as soon as it could be. The second point is that, as I understand from the Parliamentary Commissioner, Lord Feldman's evidence to her is that he telephoned me. So there was a telephone call. I responded to a telephone call. He did not write to me, I responded to a telephone call. I have no doubt—and if you look at that reference it seems to me that this is what I almost certainly did—there was a telephone call from Lord Feldman, I picked up my dictation machine and dictated a couple of paragraphs. It was something to be done. I appreciate it is difficult for you to understand the sort of pace and speed of operation which MAFF was under at that time dealing with BSE and the fisheries policy as well—

  24. So you are saying that you had a telephone call from Lord Feldman, thought, "This is something I can clear up in five minutes", and you dictated it there and then?
  (Mr Baldry) Yes, I strongly suspect that is what happened.

  Mr Levitt: Thank you.

  25. Mr Baldry, you mentioned the timing of this, the end of 1996, beginning of 1997, and I take your point about how busy the Department was at that time. You say you have no recollection of this but you do seem to be able to recall the majorities there were in certain debates and length of sittings.
  (Mr Baldry) I can recall the majority because I actually dug out the debate. I dug out the debate from my speeches box. My recollections of that time are afternoons sitting in my office having some very lengthy—but I cannot remember the nature of them—and sometimes fairly heated discussions with colleagues, of extracting large sums of money from the Treasury for fisheries communities, but I could not remember the detail of that. It was only when I went to the Library to dig out the press cuttings of the Fisheries Council that I remembered that it had been 21 hours. I also remembered—and until I looked at this I had genuinely forgotten—that one of the reasons why the debate was so important was that the Ulster Unionists had threatened to bring down the Government on the issue. As The Times said "The deal appeared to have removed any immediate threat of the nine Ulster Unionist MPs in the Commons refusing to vote for the Government in the new year". It was only after getting this out of the library that I remembered any of that.

  26. Also in early 1997, if anybody goes through the press cuttings relating to that period, the culture in this place was caught up with what became dubbed as sleaze, cash for questions and the issues relating to Hamilton. Do you feel that culture, that mentality, could have coloured your views as well?
  (Mr Baldry) No. Let me make it entirely clear to the Committee. When Lord Feldman asked me for a reference no alarm bells rang in my mind, so far as Mr Zaiwalla was concerned some time before I had been given the loan, I sorted out the terms and I had given a postdated cheque, so far as I was concerned that was all dealt with. Clearly nothing rang an alarm bell when Lord Feldman telephoned me and if it had done I would have responded very differently. Clearly I accept that I did not put my mind properly to the issues at the time. It is that for which I stand to be criticised and it is not having done that, and not having written to the Lord Chancellor's Department for which I stand to be criticised. I say to the Committee that is what I readily acknowledge that I did wrong, but no more.

  27. You said that you do have any paperwork relating to this period?
  (Mr Baldry) Sorry?

  28. You do not have any paperwork, copy letters relating to this particular period?
  (Mr Baldry) No. I do not know about the practice of other colleagues but we all have limited filing cabinets and at each general election I simply clear my files of by and large the constituency correspondence and everything else and I start again. More so at the last general election because, of course, I moved office from the office I had as a minister to a new set of offices, so there was a comprehensive clear-out.

  29. Something that happened within a few months of the general election, you would not keep any of that correspondence, there would be ongoing cases for example?
  (Mr Baldry) Interestingly, actually comparatively few ongoing cases.

  30. You are lucky.
  (Mr Baldry) You are very welcome to come and look at my filing system. You will find there is nothing in my filing system prior to the general election.

  31. You can see how some people might see that as quite convenient, that there is nothing there relating to this period?
  (Mr Baldry) It has been as frustrating for me as for anyone not having full recollection of all the facts, okay? May I just say, and I hope the Commissioner will confirm this, long before this specific issue arose I had sought, wherever possible, to be open and upfront about what happened. When the Sunday Telegraph first telephoned me I could not remember the details of the loan. I then remembered that we had agreed to pay interest and by the Monday I was able to find the loan agreement, all right? It then took me a little time to find my bank statements, and as soon as I found my bank statements I remembered that in the event, as recorded in the Sunday Telegraph, the cheque had bounced on the first occasion and, instead of paying £5,125, I paid £5,200 to Mr Zaiwalla. Immediately I realised that I wrote to the Parliamentary Commissioner and I sent her copies of my bank statements so she could see exactly the day that I received the loan, the day on which the cheque was first drawn and returned and the day upon which I paid the amount. It has been as frustrating for me not having total recall of all the events, and very disturbing not having total recall of the events. I can only tell the Committee what is the truth, and just as I think there are a number of other things at that time which I cannot recall with total accuracy I am very sorry that I cannot recall this.

  32. When you got rid of your files, did you do that before the general election or after?
  (Mr Baldry) Immediately after the general election obviously we cleared our offices and I cannot remember now whether I cleared my office in the House in anticipation of the general election and put everything into storage, or whatever. Eventually I moved into 7 Millbank, where I am at the present moment, and at that stage I and my research assistant and secretary simply went through all the files and cleared them all.

  33. So it would have been after the general election?
  (Mr Baldry) I suspect when I moved into 7 Millbank. Let me reassure you, before a general election we are all pretty busy fighting the general election. Bear in mind, of course, that ministers carry on being ministers until polling day. So, in addition to fighting my own constituency, during the general election campaign I was also travelling around to a lot of fishing constituencies and during the course of the general election I had to attend a meeting of the Council of Ministers in Europe. It was only after the general election that I actually had time to start look to those personal things on my own behalf.

  Shona McIsaac: Thank you.

  Chairman: Does anybody want to come back?

  34. I would like to solicit some very brief responses from you on several matters.
  (Mr Baldry) I am sorry?

  35. I would like to solicit some very brief responses. Does Mr Feldman know Mr Zaiwalla? Are they friends?
  (Mr Baldry) I presume they do. As I understood it, Lord Feldman worked with Mr Zaiwalla.

  36. Did Mr Feldman know, when he asked you whether you would lend your support in a letter, that you had borrowed some money?
  (Mr Baldry) No, not at all.

  37. He had no idea at all?
  (Mr Baldry) No. I accept, Mr Campbell-Savours, that perhaps one of the reactions—

  38. How would he know—
  (Mr Baldry) Sorry?

  39. Forgive me, carry on.
  (Mr Baldry) I accept perhaps if Lord Feldman had telephoned me for a reference one of my proper reactions would have been "Basil, I am very sorry, I cannot do this because I have had a loan". That clearly did not come up in the conversation and I fully accept that was an error of judgment on my part.