Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

(a) Did the Government behave in a way which was dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous in revealing Dr Kelly's name to the media, thereby subjecting him to the pressure and stress which were bound to arise from being placed in the media spotlight?

(b) If the Government did not behave in a way which was dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous in revealing Dr Kelly's name to the media, did the Government fail to take proper steps to help and protect Dr Kelly in the difficult position in which he found himself?

[22 September, page 25, line 4]

What I suggest to you is that there was a deliberate Government strategy to leak Dr Kelly's name into the public arena without appearing to do so, by a combination of the press statement, the question and answer material, the Prime Minister's official spokesman press briefing and other leaks which appear to have taken place to the press. That is what I suggest.

Q & A

Who is the official?

The official works in MoD.

What is his name and current post?

We wouldn't normally volunteer a name.

If the correct name is given, we can confirm it and say that he is senior advisor to the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat.

How long has he been in MoD?

He has been in his current position for 3 to 4 years. Before that he was a member of UNSCOM.

Did the official play any part in drawing up the dossier?

He was involved in providing historical details of UNSCOM's activities prior to 1998.

Is he a senior figure?

He is not a member of the SCS - he is a middle-ranking official.

Is he still working for MoD?

Yes.

Is he in Iraq?

No, though he visited Iraq recently for a week.

Is he a member of the ISG?

No.

Do you believe he is the single source?

It is not for us to say - only the BBC can confirm that.

So he hasn't volunteered to being the source?

No. He volunteered that he met Mr Gilligan and discussed the September dossier.

It is unprecedented for a Government Department to make a statement of this sort. Why have you done it?

There is no comparable situation that springs to mind. We have set out the facts as they have been put to us, on an issue of considerable public concern. The official involved volunteered the information to us.

Can we interview the individual?

No - this is not appropriate as the consequences will be dealt with by MoD internally.

Will he be disciplined/sacked?

Appropriate management steps will be taken. On the basis of our current understanding of the situation, he will not be sacked.

Where did he meet Mr Gilligan?

He says they met in the Charing Cross Hotel, central London.

In what form did this official come forward?

The official approached his line manager, which is the standard procedure for raising concerns. He has also been interviewed by the relevant members of senior staff.

Why has the official come forward now?

It followed his reading of the detailed evidence Mr Gilligan gave to the FAC.

What was it in that evidence that made the official consider that his conversation might be relevant?

The official felt that a number of elements of the conversation he had with Mr Gilligan were consistent with Mr Gilligan's evidence to the FAC when describing his single source. Though a number were not. For details - see the statement.

Are you suggesting Mr Gilligan deliberately "sexed up" his story?

We are making no accusations. We are merely setting the information that has been put to us.

When did he come forward?

At the beginning of last week.

Why has it taken you a week to produce the information?

It was necessary to arrange for the official to be interviewed to establish, as far as we can, the details of his meeting with Gilligan.

When was he interviewed?

On Friday and Monday.

Which senior staff were informed?

The PUS was informed on Thursday. He informed the Secretary of State that evening.

When were No 10 told and if they were, why?

No 10 were told on Friday. It is only natural that they would be informed of a development on an issue of major concern.

Which other government departments were told?

As you would expect, Cabinet Office and FCO.

Why did you not tell the FAC over the weekend?

A further interview was required and that took place on Monday afternoon.

What if the BBC deny he is the source?

We have not claimed he is - I refer you back to our statement.

Can the FAC/ISC interview him?

We will be willing to consider any such request.

Were No 10 involved in this announcement?

The decision to issue a statement was made by the MoD.

How can you be sure that there has been no breach of the OSA?

On the basis of the information we have been given, there is no evidence to suggest a breach.

[18 August, page 46, line 1]

A …. We had formed a view - I think there was a consensus amongst those closely involved in this issue in the department, really from the beginning, on two points: really that ultimately the MoD would have to make a public statement, would have to offer a public statement and that, secondly, Dr Kelly's name was likely to come into the public domain. If that is the case, which we believed it to be, we had to agree an approach whereby we could handle that situation.

[18 August, page 48, line 12]

A. We had discussed the whole issue of handling the name; and essentially Martin and I had - and essentially there were two issues. One, that it was possible that Dr Kelly's name would emerge; and the second issue was that during that process or at the same time as or even before, there were a group of other individuals who had similar backgrounds to him who might be identified incorrectly and on whom the media spotlight would fall and in a case related to this particular issue, that spotlight would be very strong. We agreed therefore that we were not prepared to have that situation, that it would be unfair on others.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. So accordingly, if you decide on that policy that you cannot have a situation whereby people are wrongly identified and subjected to a lot of attention from the media, it follows, therefore, that if an incorrect name is put to you, that you will have to reject it.

MR KNOX: Is not all this a bit of a charade though, because as soon as you make it plain to the press: give me the right name and I will tell you if you have the right answer, you are doing effectively exactly the same thing by an incorrect means as what you could do directly and just give the name out?

A. No, I think we had - you know, we had not had Dr Kelly - the idea of Dr Kelly's name being made public had not been discussed with him. The time that you would have had to consider it, between when he was consulted about the final version of this statement and when it went out, would have been insufficient for him to consider it properly and to make what other arrangements he needed.

One of the purposes for saying to people that we would be prepared to confirm the right name was going back to what I have originally said, which was that we were seeking to avoid the people who were not involved being named in the media, and the only way we could seek to do that was to make it clear to journalists we would correct wrong names so they did not get into the public domain.

Q. Did you tell Dr Kelly as far as you were aware you would be adopting this strategy, namely confirming to journalists his name if they managed to come up with it?

A. I did not speak to Dr Kelly at any point.

Q. Do you have any reason to suppose he was told this?

A. He was certainly told on more than one occasion, as I understand, that his name was likely to come into the public domain.

Q. I know, but was he told that this strategy would be adopted by the MoD press office?

A. Not to my knowledge.

LORD HUTTON: I should make it clear perhaps to the press that if I put certain questions to you that it does not mean at all I have reached any conclusion on the point. I have to consider a number of possibilities. I understand your reasoning in saying if a number of names are considered and they are not the correct names, the spotlight would fall unfairly on them; and therefore the thinking was: well, to avoid that, if we are given names which are incorrect, we will say so. But another way of looking at it is that if you adopt that approach, when the press do learn the correct name the spotlight falls very fiercely indeed on that particular person. Let us say you have six people whose names are being discussed in the press. People will then realise that certainly it is very general speculation and the individuals named may well not be the correct people at all. Certainly there is no particular person who would be regarded necessarily as being the actual civil servant concerned. But did you give any consideration to the fact that by permitting Dr Kelly's name to come out, he would be subjected to very intense media speculation?

A. Yes, I mean, there are two points I would like to make.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. Certainly.

A. The first is that whilst you might suggest that if a number of names are bandied around they would not be subjected to a great deal of media interest and concentration, I think because the profile of this subject was so large, I think actually that it would have had a lot of media attention, which would have been most unhelpful and most unfair.

The second point is, though, that we were certainly concerned for Dr Kelly. It is not as if, you know, we agreed this approach just because it was purely the best way to avoid other people being named, and accordingly, as I say, he had been made aware on two occasions that we were likely to have to make a statement, his name would come into the public domain. On the evening of the 8th July, Dr Kelly was rung by the chief press officer to alert him to the level of media interest that had arisen following the issue of our statement, to make sure that she had - or rather he had her contact number, made clear she was available to offer advice 24 hours a day, and also to suggest to him he might wish to consider staying with friends. So we were very mindful of that, and for the reasons I have given why we did not think it was fair the media spotlight would fall on others, we were aware that spotlight would be heavy and he would need guidance on how to deal with that.

[18 August, page 65, line 17]

Q. What I think might look strange is obviously you decide not to name him outright but you give all these clues and it is inevitable, is it not, once you have given all these clues, the press are going to get the right name if you have told them "I will confirm it"?

A. As I say, I do not accept this material was offered on the basis of it offering clues. There are several other points I would make. One is if, as you seem to be trying to suggest or others may suggest, all we were doing was planting lots of hints about the real identity of the unnamed official, then it is surprising on the other hand that (a) it took journalists 24 hours at least to work it out and (b) that they were ringing, putting quite a large number of names to us. So those two things seem to be slightly contradictory.

Q. It might be thought you did not want to be thought to be seen naming him directly, is that right?

A. No, I do not accept that. As I say, we had taken a decision that he would not be named in the statement and therefore we were not - you know, we were not offering anything more that would seek to undermine that decision, I can assure you.

[18 August, page 113, line 24]

Q. …can I just ask you a series of questions about Dr Kelly's name coming out into the public domain? I mean, was one of the reasons that Dr Kelly's name was wanted to be put into the public arena was to correct - was to show that Mr Gilligan was wrong about what he claimed to have been told?

A. Not Dr Kelly's name. I mean, the fact that someone had come forward certainly, as again I referred to that Kevin Tebbit letter of Friday made it clear: if we had these facts, we should make them public. One just has to think for a second what would have happened if we had not made them public and what we would have been accused of in those circumstances in terms of a cover up.

[18 August, page 123, line 21]

A. You recall from the previous meeting what we had been discussing was how we should make the fact that someone had come forward public because we thought it would be wrong to withhold that information. So we were clear it was going to become public. The manner in which we had discussed doing it in the first meeting was that letter to the ISC. That was now no longer possible since the ISC did not want us to do it that way, so we had to look at other means of doing so.

Q. What were those other means? First of all with the ISC, how did you sort that out?

A. Well, with the ISC we adopted the idea that had been put to us by them, that we could refer at the end of our press release to the fact that this individual was willing to be interviewed by them. But in terms of how we would make it public we reverted to the idea of a press release, which is what had been sent to us by the MoD the previous evening.

Q. So the 8th July, because the ISC are not happy with you publicising the letter to them -

A. Hmm.

Q. - you are now going back to the Ministry of Defence press release?

A. That is correct.

Q. You, in fact, produced some Q and A material. Can I take you to CAB/1/59? You can see that there is an e-mail. Can you tell everyone who that e-mail is to and from?

A. Yes, the first one in the sequence is from our Parliamentary private secretary, the person who deals with Parliamentary affairs, to me. Then it is replied from me to her.

Q. Right. What is the first one about?

A. Well, they are both about a Q and A on the issue of this official coming forward.

Q. Right. And why were you drafting this?

A. Well, it turns out, having spoken to this official subsequently, this was actually a misunderstanding. There was - this official thought she was drafting a Q and A for the Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday, which is her job to prepare for that. I thought she was drafting a more general Q and A on this issue.

Q. Right. So these are draft - if you turn to page 60, you can see most of these will need to be answered by MoD: "When was the PM made aware that the individual had come forward? And by who?" You can see it appears to be directed towards questions to the Prime Minister.

A. Yes.

Q. So these are drafts of what was understood, then, to be an issue that might be raised at Prime Minister's Questions, is that right?

A. That is correct. It was a rather sort of a - not a terribly well-developed piece of work. It was a very rapid series of quick fire questions and even less series of responses which I e-mailed back very quickly, but this piece of work did not go anywhere subsequently.

[18 August, page 148, line 8]

Q. You discussed it. Can you tell us what the gist of those discussions were?

A. Yes. I think there were two things that we discussed particularly. The first was whether or not we should make the fact that an official had come forward - whether we should make this available to the Foreign Affairs Committee and also to the ISC, the Intelligence and Security Committee, because we knew that they were both meeting to discuss the issue of the allegations in Mr Gilligan's broadcast.

[18 August, page 149, line 18]

MR DINGEMANS: And so there is discussion about the ISC and FAC. And were any conclusions reached?

A. The conclusions were that they should certainly consider whether we should make this information available to them. No conclusion was reached in the sense that we decided that we definitely should; but we were concerned that this was important, perhaps material, to their enquiries and we should therefore consider very carefully whether to make this information known to them.

[18 August, page 152, line 6]

Q … … the sudden concern to ensure that Dr Kelly should appear before the FAC, or the Government should be seen to be cooperating with the FAC, seems on the face of it inconsistent with the attitude that had been displaced (sic) [displayed] before.

A. Well, I can only speak for myself but I would have thought that we should certainly make the fact available to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee that this had happened. It would be for him then to decide what he wanted to do with that knowledge. But if I had been asked for my advice at that stage, I would have said that since there had been a major Public Inquiry conducted by the Foreign Affairs Committee on this issue, if someone had come forward who seemed to be potentially very important we must at least consider, which is what we were discussing on that Friday night, whether that fact should be made available to him.

[18 August, page 162, line 24]

Q. Did that influence your thinking of the matter, namely the understanding that Dr Kelly was happy for his name to go forward?

A. It seemed to me important that he should be consulted on this, yes.

Q. Important that he should be consulted; but his reported answer or the answer reported to you, that was obviously a factor in your approach to it, is that right?

A. Yes, it was a factor in my approach. But I have to be honest with you, I thought it very unlikely that if the conclusion was reached that Dr Kelly might well be Andrew Gilligan's source, that it would be possible to shield his name from public knowledge.

Q. Why is that?

A. Because I was struck by the article in The Times on Saturday the 5th which, if I recall, was a front page article which clearly showed that the press were very interested in who Andrew Gilligan's source or sources might be. And it seemed to me that it was unlikely given the level of press and public interest, that if somebody had come forward in this sort of way that their name was likely to remain secret.

Q. If you had known, for example, that Dr Kelly was less than happy about his name coming out, if that had been his view, would that have affected your views on whether his name should be given to the FAC or ISC?

A. I think if I had known he was unhappy about it, it would have perhaps qualified the way that we spoke or indicated to the chairs of those Committees; but I would still have taken the view that we should make it known to the chairman and the chair of the ISC, the chairman of the FAC, that someone had come forward.

[18 August, page 175, line 10]

Q … …. what is concluded at this meeting that started at about 11.30 on Tuesday 8th July?

A. I think the conclusion was that we should inform the chair of the ISC, since the ISC was still conducting its enquiries and it was therefore a live Inquiry, and that this should be done by means of a letter to Ann Taylor, who is the chair, and that it should probably go from David Omand and that this letter, I think, should be copied to Donald Anderson, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Q. Right. I think you have explained why Ann Taylor is going to get the letter, because she has an ongoing Inquiry. Why is it going to be copied to Donald Anderson?

A. Because, as I think I said earlier, we felt that it was very important that we were not in the position of apparently withholding key information from the Foreign Affairs Committee, which had just spent several weeks investigating this matter when something that was perhaps very important had just emerged and that as a courtesy, to say the least, we should tell the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee what had happened.

[19 August, page 137, line 4]

A. I was telephoned by Geoff Hoon about a different matter. He was actually just phoning up to offer his support and solidarity in advance of Monday. He asked me whether Jonathan Powell had mentioned I think from memory he thought the source issue. I said: no he had not, what is that? He explained somebody had come forward, that this person had admitted meeting Mr Gilligan in I think he said at that time in a hotel, that the person had acknowledged saying some of the things that had been reported by Mr Gilligan but had insisted that he had not said other things. Again, I cannot remember if this was what Mr Hoon said to me but certainly then or subsequently I was told that related specifically to this person, saying they had never said anything in relation to me.

Q. Right. And did Mr Hoon share what his initial instinct was in relation to this matter?

A. His initial instinct was I think he felt this was serious and this was a serious disciplinary matter and this person, if it was the source, had clearly caused the Government considerable difficulty and embarrassment by saying something to a reporter that was not true, but then went on to say - and this, I think, accorded with my instinct at the time - that he was in all probability telling the truth in saying that he did not say all of these things.

If I can just explain why I felt that. I had always felt about this story that Mr Gilligan probably did have a source, but that he exaggerated the source and he exaggerated what the source said. So it kind of fitted with the feeling I had had about this. I think what Mr Hoon was saying was his initial instinct was this person has to be dealt with severely but then actually thought: well, he has come forward, he has come forward in the spirit of openness and honesty and he is claiming he has been misrepresented if he is the source.

Spoke to Hoon who said that a man had come forward who felt he was possibly Gilligan's source, had come forward and was being interviewed today. GH said his initial instinct was to throw the book at him, but in fact there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain. Says that he'd come forward and he was saying yes to speak to AG, yes he said intel went in late, but he never said the other stuff. It was double-edged but GH and I agreed it would f*** Gilligan if that was his source. He said he was an expert rather than a spy or a full-time MOD official. GH and I agreed to talk tomorrow.

[19 August, page 138, line 15]

Q. You use a specific phrase in your diary. I am going to have to ask you just to relate that and explain it.

A. I have used in my diary - the reason I did not use it in answer to you now is I think it does risk being unfair to Mr Hoon. He actually said his initial instinct was, as I say, to be severe in this regard but there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain. That is what I recorded.

Q. A plea bargain with?

A. In relation to the person who had come forward. In other words, the person had been honest and open in coming forward, had acknowledged some of the, if you like, offences that were being described, but was adamant he had not been responsible for others.

Q. Why do you say that is likely to be misinterpreted or unfair?

A. Because I think it carries a suggestion that Mr Hoon was saying to me: I think we can do some kind of deal with this guy, and that is not what he was saying.

Q. Did you have any view about what this was likely to do to Mr Gilligan?

A. I felt that if this person was the source, and Mr Hoon had explained to me that the person was not a member of the Intelligence Services, was not centrally involved in the drawing up of the dossier, I therefore felt that if this person was the source then it was probably the only way that we were actually going to be able to establish the truth, namely that the allegations of May 29th were false, because of course Mr Gilligan had told the Select Committee they were based on a single source.

[19 August, page 144, line 24]

Q. Can I then turn to 6th July, which is the Sunday? How would you describe you spent most of this particular weekend? Who were you speaking to over this particular weekend?

A. Well, I was - the FAC was due to report on Monday so I was working on that, and certainly talking to Jack Straw, I think, at some point during the day on that. I also spoke, over that weekend, to the Prime Minister, Geoff Hoon and Jonathan Powell about the issue of the source.

Q. And what was your view about that matter?

A. My view was that, as I said earlier, it was probably - if this person was the source, it was probably the only way that this issue was going to be properly bottomed out. I suggested to the Prime Minister two proposals - I cannot remember exactly when these were, but the first - my first instinct, and I think Geoff Hoon's as well, was that if this development came out over that weekend the Foreign Affairs Committee were going to accuse us of having covered it up. And I was suggesting that, in confidence, not the name and I did not know the name at that point, but that Donald Anderson possibly be informed that there had been this development and that it might be relevant to the way that he framed his report on Monday which, as you say, had already gone to the printers by then.

And the second proposal I made was that the BBC governors be told in advance of their meeting on the Sunday evening.

Q. And why were you keen, as it were, to get the fact that a source or a possible source had come forward out to either the FAC or the BBC?

A. Because I thought that that development ought to have a material effect upon the outcome of those two events on the assumption that this was the source.

Q. And did the Prime Minister accept your advice in that respect, or yours and Mr Hoon's views in that respect?

A. No. No, he did not.

Q. What was his view?

A. His view - he could see the point and we had a discussion about it; and he said: I hear what you say, I can see that if it comes out - and the thing to understand about this, is that these - I mean, Government departments do leak and these kind of things can get out and he was worried that that might happen there over that weekend. So the Prime Minister said: I hear what you say about the cover-up point, I hear what you say about the BBC, but you have to leave this to Sir Kevin Tebbit and David Omand to handle. And I was guided by that instruction.

Q. Did you think that was the right approach?

A. I felt - at the time I am not sure that I did, but I think I do now.

Q. Did Mr Hoon think that was the right approach?

A. I think he felt, like I did, that the - this was a development that could, at that time, possibly have been communicated to these bodies. But he too - I think he discussed it - he certainly discussed it with Jonathan Powell. He may well have discussed it with the Prime Minister as well. The Prime Minister's view was very, very clear and everybody understood it from the word go.

[19 August, page 150, line 9]

MR DINGEMANS: What are you saying should have been adopted?

A. I have to admit this is, in part, a hindsight point.

Q. Yes.

A. But it is a thought that I had at the time, which I probably did not articulate as forcefully as I normally do articulate proposals that I have, because I was being instructed by the Prime Minister just to stay a little bit distant from this, because I was so centrally involved in relation to the events concerning the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I feel, and I think this is something Godric Smith in his own way did articulate at the time but again maybe we did not push this in the way that we should, but in these difficult situations where you are dealing with individuals as well as institutions and individuals who are not necessarily, as Mr Dingemans said, used to dealing with some of the things that we are used to dealing with all the time, then clarity is always best, and I completely understand why the Ministry of Defence had the strategy that they had in relation to if you like the two stage statement because Dr Kelly had said he did not want to be in that first wave, he had made that clear, we were told.

But I think again, and I emphasise this is with an element of hindsight, that probably what I feel I maybe should have expressed more forcefully at that time is: look, if you are in this kind of situation you do have to have some element of control over the process here. You cannot just let this sort of dribble out in a way that you are not clear how it is then going to unfold. So I think the desired outcome, given that everybody, including it seems Dr Kelly, understood that it is likely because of the importance of this development he was likely to be identified, he was likely to have to appear at one or both Select Committees, far better it would have been for that to be announced properly, cleanly, straightforwardly and then you can actually put in place all the proper support that somebody who is not used to this kind of pressure can then maybe better deal with it.

LORD HUTTON: But that is going to subject the individual to very great pressure. He is going to be put into the full glare of the media.

A. I accept that, but I think the judgment that was being reached by everybody involved in these discussions is that was going to happen because since Dr Kelly's death, I mean, parts of the media have been trying to give the impression: you know that they would never have been interested in this issue if it had not been for this clue, that clue and all the rest of it. The media were in full pursuit of this story and it was going to happen. I am afraid it is just the way of the world that we are in that the - I do not know if - I saw an interview Tom Mangold did after Dr Kelly's death where he said Dr Kelly understood this. Maybe he did understand it but maybe he did not understand the ramifications of it, that it was going to happen.

[19 August, page 154, line 2]

A …. I felt, in some of those discussions that we were having, during that period, that there was an element of unreality about them; that any second there could have been a phone call.

Indeed, it seems that the report of Mr Rufford - the reporter Mr Rufford from the Sunday Times was already on to this. It was going to happen. I think what we - again, I say with the benefit of hindsight what we did not do was actually just acknowledge that and I think maybe more time could then have been taken with Dr Kelly to sit down and say: look, this is virtually inevitable, it is going to have to happen and therefore let us work out exactly all the steps that then have to be taken.

As I say, it is easy in a sense to - and I do not want to feel that I am criticising others in this, because I understand how these strategies can get drawn up in very difficult, fast moving situations. But I think that would have been a better approach.

[19 August, page 163, line 9]

Q. We then come on to the 8th July. The Prime Minister is prepared, in the morning, for the Liaison Committee. I think we have heard from Mr Powell about that yesterday. Then at 11.30am he returns from the Liaison Committee and there is a discussion about whether or not Dr Kelly's name should be made public. Were you party to that discussion?

A. I was party to parts of that discussion.

[19 August, page 165, line 12]

LORD HUTTON: Mr Campbell, in a sense I think you have already given detailed answers to a number of matters relating to Dr Kelly's name being released, but appreciating that, I would just like to ask you another general question: suppose at this discussion on 8th July someone had said: let us just hold on for a minute, this is a civil servant who has given very distinguished service to his country, he has admittedly been indiscreet in speaking to a journalist as he has, but if we release his name we are going to subject him to very considerable strain. Is that right that we should do this? Can we not simply batten down the hatches? And there is a risk of a leak but perhaps it will not come out, or if the names are put to us we just say: we do not respond to questions about civil servants. I know you have in a sense already responded to that question, but I wondered if you could give a general answer, a general summary as to what the response would have been if that question had been raised?

A. I think you could have done that, but I think it would still have ended with all the media pressure - media and other pressure that you refer to, because I think it would have come out, because these things do. And again, I mean, I am slightly - I have given up reading newspapers in recent weeks but I have a slight concern that things I have said already will be taken as critical of others. I regret that if that is the case. I do want to say in all those discussions I was privy to Kevin Tebbit in particular was absolutely solicitous. He did not make the point in exactly the way that you put it -

LORD HUTTON: No, I appreciate that.

A. - but he was constantly emphasising: this is an employee. Yes, he has clearly done something that he should not have done, but we are his employer and have a duty of care to him.

The other observation I would make from those discussions, again this clearly is a hindsight point, but the impression I got - I did not know Dr Kelly, but the impression I got was of, and the way that he was being described was actually of a very strong, resolute character, clearly of deep conviction and who had been in many difficult, stressful circumstances, and I just do not think it crossed anybody's mind that it might take the turn that it did.

[19 August, page 167, line 15]

LORD HUTTON: But a cover-up in what sense? What would have been covered up?

A. What would have been covered up would be the fact - bear in mind - and this is why it was so difficult to draft that press release that was finally released, because there were so many of these competing factors. Part of the discussion that I recall, involving Sir Kevin Tebbit, Sir David Omand, the Prime Minister and others, was Sir Kevin clearly not being 100 per cent sure about whether - what Dr Kelly had actually said, about what he might say if he was called before a Select Committee.

So I do not think people should imagine that we were sitting there thinking: well, Dr Kelly, up before the Select Committee, it is unadulterated, unalloyed good news for the Government. It was not necessarily going to be so because Kevin Tebbit had reported he did have concerns about some aspects of the Government's position.

LORD HUTTON: So the concern was that if his name was not given by the Government but it was later revealed, it might transpire that Dr Kelly had views which were quite or strongly critical of the Government?

A. That is right; and that is why the Government did not want to put him before public scrutiny. And I think if, for example, on that Saturday that I was talking to the Prime Minister and Jonathan Powell and the Defence Secretary about the issue, if one of the Sunday papers, on that Saturday, had discovered this development then I can guarantee you the headlines the next day would have been "Government cover-up on eve of FAC report".

[20 August, page 58, line 23]

Q. Did you at this stage [7 July 2003] have any view about whether or not Dr Kelly's name should be made public?

A. I started from the premise that it was inevitable that his name would become public at some stage. He had implied as much in his own letter.

Q. We have seen the passages where he says someone at RUSI - you think it may be Chatham House -

A. Yes.

Q. - may have known him, and also that he thought that some suspicion might fall on him.

A. Yes.

Q. Is there not a difference between those two passages and actually giving the name out to the press?

A. There is indeed, but there are many other elements in between the two points. As I say, the comment from a member of staff who did not know about this beforehand, having read The Times on Saturday, saying: they have all but named him, was also very significant. I have learnt subsequently actually, I did not know at the time, that knowledge that Dr Kelly had had meetings with Andrew Gilligan were becoming discussed at cocktail parties that officials in the Ministry of Defence were having. I only learnt that subsequently but it gives, I think, a flavour of the sort of environment.

[20 August, page 72, line 1]

LORD HUTTON: ….. can you just elaborate a little more on the point: why, if the Government were aware that there was an official who had not been directly concerned in drawing up the intelligence part of the dossier, if they knew there was such an official, why would the Government feel obliged to put his views into the public arena?

A. The 45 minutes comment he would make, I think, was not a central point here. The central point was that if we were certain that Dr Kelly provided the explanation for a story which had a fundamental influence on public confidence and trust in the Government's policies, then there was a strong case, one might almost say a duty, to bring that information forward.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. So it was because he was the source of the story, not just that he was an official who may have held views that differed from the Government's views?

A. Absolutely. I think it was almost a unique and unprecedented case, my Lord. Here was a single anonymous source, we had learnt from Mr Gilligan, who was responsible for a judgment which had a major effect on the confidence in the Government and on the intelligence process. If we find that there is a single identified source who says, effectively, "It was I, but I did not say those things, they are" as Dr Kelly put it "a considerable embellishment on what I said", then that would be the only way of clarifying reliably the public record. It would have been no good for the Government to say: we have an anonymous source who we think might be the same one that said something different. The authenticity would have depended on the individual being named.

[20 August, page 74, line 7]

MR DINGEMANS: So would the Government be accused of a cover up if Dr Kelly does not believe he is the source, and you may agree or disagree with him, and he has uncomfortable views on some aspects of the 45 minutes claim? Where is the cover up in that?

A. I think the cover up is: here we are, sitting on information of great relevance to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and indeed the Intelligence and Security Committee, which arrives in a letter dated 30th June and here we already are, 7th July, the Foreign Affairs Committee have reported without any knowledge of this. This was a critical adjunct to Andrew Gilligan's testimony, which was the main reason for the Foreign Affairs Committee's hearing and process. We had said nothing about it. Here we were, a week later. It did look as it we were withholding information of great public interest.

[20 August, page 83, line 4]

Q. Can I also take you to the defensive Q and A material which is at MoD/1/62, which I think was prepared for the reaction to the press release, which I think we have been told went out at about quarter to 6 on Tuesday, 8th July. Were you aware of this defensive Q and A material?

A. Yes, I was aware of it.

Q. Were you party to any of the drafting of this defensive Q and A material?

A. No, I did not draft any of it. I did glance through it.

Q. Do you know whether or not Dr Kelly was aware, if this was all a voluntary process, of the defensive Q and A material?

A. No I do not think he would have - I am sure he did not see the Q and A.

Q. He did not see the Q and A?

A. I am pretty sure he did not.

Q. Perhaps you can tell me if this is right or wrong: if you go through the Q and A material, we have been told if they ask these questions, they get these answers; this is to prepare all the press officers so they are giving the same answers. That is right, is it not?

A. (Pause). Yes- well, I assume so. I mean, I did not spend time myself in going through the detailed Q and A. I regarded that as the normal backgrounding that is given on these sorts of issues. I spent more time over the actual statement itself.

Q. I understand that. But now that you have had a chance to look at the Q and A material.

[Part of the Q and A material was then read out by counsel.]

…it does seem, reading this, and certainly I think we are likely to hear this from journalists, that once you got these clues, if they can be so described, it is not going to be very difficult to identify Dr Kelly?

A. These were not intended to be clues.

[20 August, page 85, line 22]

A … So my own view was always that it would be preferable for Dr Kelly to come forward with a clear statement. We had not reached that stage on the Tuesday evening, because the discussions with Dr Kelly had still been concentrating on the discrepancies between his account and Andrew Gilligan's. Nevertheless, it was felt, not just in the Ministry of Defence but very strongly in No.10 and in the Cabinet Office, that it was necessary for a statement to be made, that the information could not be held on to. I was not, myself, present during all the discussions on the Tuesday because I was in Portsmouth handing out awards for bravery for people who had managed to save the "Nottingham" from sinking, so it was an event that I could not really cancel. But I was aware of the discussions that were going on at No.10 and the Cabinet Office and there was a very strong feeling that we needed to come forward with the information. If -

MR DINGEMANS: Who did you understand that strong feeling to come from?

A. Well, it was a collective view of Sir David Omand, John Scarlett, the Prime Minister. It was one which I did not disagree with at all, but I was not there. And, as you recall, the first idea was that this should be sent in the form of a letter to the Intelligence and Security Committee for them to look at, and also that it should be put to the BBC in the context of: we are not asking you to say whether this is the source but only to say if it is not, so that we could be clear on our ground. As it happened, Ann Taylor decided she did not wish to receive this unless it was preceded by a public statement.

Q. Is that the reason that the impetus came for the public statement?

A. I think that was the reason, so that when I returned from Portsmouth it was quite clear that the view in Whitehall, which we shared in the Ministry of Defence, we did not dissent, was that we should indeed issue a public statement, and the sense was that that needed to be done more or less then on that date, the Tuesday or so. So we needed to issue a statement before we had got to a stage really where we could name Dr Kelly, because the last conversation we had had with him had not actually got to that point.

Q. He had not yet said: okay, give my name out?

A. He had not been asked that question.

Q. And so when the defence Q and A material is deployed and the material not intended to be clues is used as clues by journalists, and the journalists then come back with the right name, and the name is given out, was Dr Kelly, at this stage, voluntarily cooperating with the process?

A. I think again this is not the context that I would put it in. We needed to come up with the statement that was sufficiently informative to justify its existence. That is to say, it had to explain that the individual who had come forward had a status which was different from that alleged by Mr Gilligan and also that his views were not exactly the same as those claimed by Mr Gilligan on this critical issue of Government interference on the dossier, in order to justify the statement and the intention of it being discussed further in the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The need for a question and answer brief in the first instance was no more than that we had always expected that Dr Kelly's name would come out, at any moment, throughout this process from the receipt of his letter onwards, growing over time. So there was always a need to anticipate the prospect that journalists would say, anyone would say: you know, we know it is Kelly. And we could not deny that it was Dr Kelly if that circumstance arose. We could not deny it partly because this is not an issue on which to play games, it was an issue of vast public importance, and partly because it would have been wrong for other members of the Ministry of Defence to come under suspicion and media scrutiny, which indeed did happen.

I mean, this was not an abstract concern. This was a real point. We had journalists tapping on the windows of an individual's house trying to attract the attention of their children in order to talk to their father, who happened to be a member of the Ministry of Defence. Nothing to do with this issue at all. But the idea that we could not allow others to come under that sort of scrutiny was real. It was not an abstract point. And therefore we had to be prepared to say: no, it is not X or it is not Y.

Therefore, to the extent there was a strategy, it was simply that. The question and answers were guidance for backgrounding, but there was no intention of, as it were, volunteering the name or playing games with the press trying to help them get the name. They certainly worked hard enough to find it. In a way, I fear, the statement we made showed the futility really of trying to make a statement based on an anonymous source. If the name is not there, the press is not that interested. They spent huge efforts trying to find out who it was.

[20 August, page 97, line 1]

Q. On 14th July I think you have a conversation with Mr Howard about whether Dr Kelly felt under stress. Do you -

A. Yes. I can remember - I mean, it was not prompted by anything other than a general concern that Dr Kelly should be coping and so I asked Mr Howard to make sure that he was okay.

[20 August, page 97, line 20]

Q. Is there anything else that you know of the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death that you can assist his Lordship with?

A. I do not think there is. I have thought long and hard about this issue. As you can imagine, as Permanent Secretary I have felt deep sense of responsibility, not of culpability but of responsibility in this area, since he was a member of my staff and my staff were talking to him. So his death came as a terrible shock. I have thought long and hard about the approach that was taken, whether it was reasonable to ensure that Dr Kelly came forward to tell his story. I still believe that to have been the right course of action. I believe that was correct on a number of grounds. Firstly, on grounds of proportionality. I mean, this was not a minor issue. This was a major issue, in terms of Government reputation and in terms of the integrity of the whole way in which we handle intelligence. And in those circumstances one has to weigh that against individual considerations.

The second issue was the problem of having a single anonymous source, and then an individual comes forward who we have reason to believe is that source, or at least provides the explanation for what Andrew Gilligan reported. In other words, these are very special circumstances. So correcting the public record could only be achieved by that single anonymous source being named as the individual who can provide the explanation.

The third issue that I have thought about concerns accountability. I mean normally, as the Permanent Secretary, or indeed Ministers such as Geoff Hoon, if officials in our departments are carrying out our business, implementing Government policy, sometimes controversially, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes issues arising in the press, we still take responsibility for their actions and do not expect to put them in front of committees. I appear regularly in the Public Accounts Committee to answer for the actions of my officials, whether they are helpful or unhelpful, and I accept that responsibility because they are doing their job. This was a case where an individual had caused a great deal to happen, operating, as it were, outside his official responsibilities; and the only way, in a sense, that he could deal with that was under his own responsibility. So there was a different sense of accountability here. The attendance at Parliamentary Committees was something that Ministers had to decide. The issues were always bound to come out anyway and that was always underlying this point, that we expected the name to emerge at any stage throughout the process, and the concerns that despite your points that the Government would be criticised heavily for not bringing it forward, the problems of other members of the department coming under suspicion if we were not prepared to confirm that it was Dr Kelly once a public statement had been made.

But all these issues have gone round in my head, but I am satisfied that we did the right things, balancing very difficult issues.

[20 August, page 193, line 14]

Q. We know that during the course of the 9th July his name is obtained by various journalists. Were you party to that process at all?

A. No. I was asked questions at the Lobby and I tried - I felt uncomfortable doing the Lobbies that day because I think I was trying to juggle a number of different pressures, if you like. I was trying to juggle the need to try to protect Dr Kelly's name for as long as possible, though, again, I was aware that Dr Kelly had accepted that his name would become public.

Q. Who had told you that?

A. Kevin Tebbit. I had heard at one of the meetings.

Q. He had said that?

A. He had said that.

Q. Yes.

A. I accepted that as a realistic assessment of my own judgment as to what might happen. So I was trying to protect Dr Kelly's identity. But I was also trying to clarify the apparent discrepancies between the MoD statement and the BBC's response to it. And I was also being asked questions by journalists as well. So I was trying to juggle, if you like, a number of different pressures.

[26 August, page 167, line 5]

LORD HUTTON: I have asked at least one other witness, Sir David, as to the reason why these very senior officials, including yourself, all assembled to discuss this report with Sir Kevin Tebbit. I mean, it does seem a galaxy gathering to discuss this matter, if I may so put it. Do you have any comment on that?

A. I think the explanation lies in the front pages of the newspapers, that this was an issue which had dominated political debate in the country for a considerable time and showed no signs of diminishing. It was a matter of intense interest and concern to the Prime Minister, in view of the nature of the allegations which were being made. It was a matter of concern to me, because it was directly challenging the integrity of a process for which I was responsible.

[26 August, page 182, line 22]

Q. Did you express any views about the FAC or not, at that stage?

A. Yes, we discussed what should be done. I made clear my view, which was that there was now sufficient probability that he was the single source to warrant our informing the Parliamentary Committees; and that, in particular, the Intelligence and Security Committee needed to know they were about to take evidence from senior witnesses on these very matters, and we could not be in a false position of appearing before a Committee and not admitting to the fact that we now believed that it was likely we had an explanation for the stories that had appeared.

Q. What was said about the Foreign Affairs Committee?

A. As far as I can recall the logic of the discussion, we first considered the position of the Intelligence and Security Committee and agreed that we had to inform them. And certainly I made it clear that if I was giving evidence I would certainly have to admit to this knowledge; and that it would be very difficult, indeed, unthinkable, to inform one Committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee, and not inform the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is a Select Committee of Parliament, who had only just completed a report which touched on these matters; so that if we informed one we would have to inform the other. The logic then went on to debate: if we inform the Foreign Affairs Committee, is that tantamount to making the matter public? And we concluded that it was.

Q. Had not the Foreign Secretary given evidence in private to the Foreign Affairs Committee?

A. Yes, he had.

Q. The Foreign Affairs Committee had reported, had they not?

A. They had.

Q. And you were, as a Government, cooperating with the Intelligence and Security Committee in giving them drafts of the dossier, and you were less than cooperative to the Foreign Affairs Committee, you were not giving them any drafts of the dossier. Why did you need to tell them anything?

A. (Pause). The answer to that, I think, you have already had this morning from a member of the Committee and indeed from the Chairman of the Committee. For us to have deliberately withheld this information from a Select Committee, when it was relevant to a report they had just produced, whilst making it available to another Committee of Parliamentarians would have been, in my view, improper.

Q. Was any thought given to notifying the Foreign Affairs Committee in private?

A. Yes.

Q. I mean, like Mr Straw's evidence.

A. The evidence may have been given in private, but the fact that he was giving it certainly was not. That was very publicly known. And we thought it just inconceivable that we could inform the Chairman and the Chairman would not feel obliged to inform the Committee; and once we had told the Foreign Affairs Committee in full, that was tantamount to making the matter public.

[27 August, page 11, line 19]

Q. Were you told anything about a letter that the official had written?

A. I was told that he had set out, in some detail, that he had had this meeting with Andrew Gilligan. There were various details put to me, but I - the significant thing was that although he had recognised some of the things that Andrew Gilligan subsequently broadcast as being attributable to him and to his conversation, he did not believe that he was Andrew Gilligan's single source because there were other things in the broadcast that he did not recognise as having said to Andrew Gilligan in the course of that meeting.

Q. Did you have any initial reaction to this information?

A. I think my first - my very first reaction was that this was something that could well lead to disciplinary proceedings, as far as the official was concerned. The Ministry of Defence, in the period - for some time, has had something of a reputation for unauthorised briefing and leaking to journalists; and it did appear that this was perhaps an opportunity to demonstrate that unauthorised contacts with journalists would be looked at seriously.

Q. Can I just there take you to a reference which is 5th June 2003, MoD/1/17? This is a memorandum from Martin Howard who the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence. He says, in paragraph 2, that the Ministry of Defence had a reputation as a "leaky" department.

Over the page at MoD/1/18, towards the bottom, he said this: "I repeat, that I have no reason to think that anyone in the DIS is responsible for the leak to Mr Gilligan. But if it turns out that this is the case and the individual is identified, the strongest possible action will be taken." Which I think you say accords with your initial thought?

A. That was certainly my very first thought, because over some time there had been warnings to - I will not just say officials, because this extended obviously as well to members of the armed forces. It was not simply a question of officials being warned, it was a concern generally about security, not least in times of conflict, that information should be held securely within the department.

Q. Your other reaction?

A. Immediately, perhaps almost at the same time, I was also concerned at the Foreign Affairs Committee hearings because my assumption was that any disciplinary process will take some considerable time to complete. On that Thursday, as far as I was aware, the Foreign Affairs Committee was still meeting, still hearing, as part of their investigation into the decision to take military action in Iraq, a significant part of which was concerned with the Andrew Gilligan broadcast and the role that he had played and Alastair Campbell had played. So I was very concerned, at that stage, that if an official had come forward who had relevant evidence to that inquiry, that that would be something that we would have to make known, quite quickly, to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[27 August, page 15, line 14]

Q. Did you decide, when you were talking to Sir Kevin Tebbit, what to do in relation to Dr Kelly, about interviews or anything else?

A. Well, I did not decide because it has always been my practice, in the Ministry of Defence, to ensure that appropriate responsibilities are dealt with by appropriate people. When I first arrived in the Ministry of Defence I think it was the then Chief of Defence Staff described the leadership of the Ministry of Defence as a three legged stool. He had responsibility for military matters; the Permanent Secretary had responsibility for personnel matters, Civil Service; and I was responsible for political leadership of the department. Therefore, as far as any personnel issues were concerned, the responsibility was clearly that of the Permanent Secretary.

Q. Was anything said about interviews with Dr Kelly though, in your discussions?

A. The Permanent Secretary summarised the position consistently, I believe, with the thoughts that I have just set out to you in terms of my initial reaction, which was that either there could be a disciplinary process affecting the official or there could be what he described as a management process, reflecting the fact that the official had come forward, was apparently cooperating, and could, he believed at that stage, correct the public record, that is the material that Andrew Gilligan had broadcast. That was his analysis of the issue. That analysis I accepted because he was responsible for those personnel questions.

LORD HUTTON: Was correcting the public record a personnel matter?

A. As far as Sir Kevin was concerned, it was important to the Ministry of Defence and indeed to the Government as a whole that the public record should be corrected. I think he viewed that as a management issue, as far as dealing with the official was concerned.

[27 August, page 21, line 2]

Q. Did you speak to Mr Campbell about your initial reactions on hearing the news of Dr Kelly coming forward?

A. Yes, I did. I described to him the process that I have set out to you now, which is what my initial reaction was, the importance of security of information in the Ministry of Defence and the possibility of there being disciplinary proceedings, but also I emphasised to him my concern about any suggestion that the Government should be covering up the fact of a potential witness coming forward, in the light of the continuing, as I felt at the time, Foreign Affairs Committee deliberations. So I went through precisely the process that I have gone through today of describing to him both my initial reaction and then my thoughts about the relevance of this to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Q. I think Mr Campbell's recollection was that the conversation was on the Friday. He also mentioned that after you had spoken about your initial instincts in relation to disciplinary proceedings, you mentioned the words "plea bargain". Do you recollect mentioning that to Mr Campbell?

A. I do not remember using that particular phrase to him, but I can see that as a shorthand account of what I had described to him it would have summarised, in a sense, the alternatives available to the personnel director in the Ministry of Defence in dealing with Dr Kelly. But I would want to emphasise that it was never the case that Richard Hatfield or anyone else in the Ministry of Defence offered any kind of an arrangement or deal to Dr Kelly. I have subsequently read the accounts that Richard Hatfield has set out of the interviews he conducted with Dr Kelly. There was no mention of any kind of deal or plea bargain. It was simply perhaps Alastair's summary of the material that I had set out to him; and the material I had set out was entirely retrospective. It was not in any way suggesting how the matter would be taken forward.

Q. What had you said to Mr Campbell that could be written down in shorthand as a plea bargain?

A. I had taken him through, in precisely the way I have done today, my initial reaction, which was this was potentially a serious disciplinary issue. But equally my second thought, which was that this potential witness might have something to say relevant to the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing and that we would have to take care to avoid any suggestion that we might be seen to be covering up the fact of this witness, given the importance of the issue to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

LORD HUTTON: But Secretary of State, a plea bargain, as I understand it, usually means that a person charged with some sort of offence agrees to plead guilty on the understanding that he will not receive a very severe sentence.

A. That is also my understanding, my Lord.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. But do you think you might have used this term or do you think it is a term which Mr Campbell attributed to the sense of what you were saying to him?

A. Well, I do not recall using the phrase.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. I can see that in the description that I gave of the process that had taken place up until then, that that might be a shorthand account, because normally disciplinary proceedings would follow from an investigation where the authorities inside the Ministry of Defence, as a result of their efforts, had identified a particular individual who might have broken the rules. In contrast, this particular individual had come forward. He had written quite a detailed letter, had volunteered information, was apparently cooperating. So, in a sense, my Lord, without it being in any way a formalised arrangement, and I would want to emphasise this was not in any way acted upon by Richard Hatfield or anyone else, that that might have been seen to be of that kind by Alastair in the course of his summarising our conversation.

[27 August, page 30, line 11]

Q. Did you have a view at that stage about whether or not it was desirable that Dr Kelly's name should be made public?

A. I was concerned at that stage that we did not have enough information to be able to be sure that Dr Kelly was the single source of Andrew Gilligan's material. And in those circumstances, and indeed throughout the history of this matter, because I was not sure that that was the case, I did not believe that it was appropriate to make his name public.

Q. Were you aware that throughout, whether rightly or wrongly, Dr Kelly was contending that he was not the single source?

A. That he was not?

Q. Yes.

A. Yes, I was aware of that and I have said so already to the Inquiry. I was aware of that because of the letter that he wrote to the Ministry of Defence and, indeed, because of the interview that he had conducted with Richard Hatfield. That was a significant factor in the material that Kevin Tebbit told me about following the interview.

[27 August, page 37, line 13]

MR DINGEMANS: Going forward, as it were, almost to the end of the story, before Dr Kelly's death were you ever sure that Dr Kelly was the single source?

A. Not before his death.

Q. But we also know that Dr Kelly's name did come out.

A. Yes, it did.

Q. So, I understood you to be saying that at that stage you were still concerned with ensuring, out of fairness to Dr Kelly, his name did not come out before you were sure he was the single source.

A. That is absolutely right. Indeed, I had a conversation with my private secretary on the day that the BBC made their announcement, still questioning whether in fact - because I had been told they were going to make an announcement but I did not know the nature of it at the time. I still was not sure on - when was it? - Sunday, about the 20th I should imagine, when they made their announcement, I still was not sure at that stage, before they made their announcement, that Dr Kelly was their single source.

[27 August, page 46, line 25]

Q. Who did you understand to be the lead department? Had it now become No.10 or was it still the Ministry of Defence?

A. Well, the Ministry of Defence was the lead department as far as dealing with Dr Kelly on a personnel basis, as far his position, as far as the department were concerned, then I was concerned that the Permanent Secretary should look at that matter as an employment concern issue, to look at it from a point of view ensuring that Dr Kelly was properly and fairly treated. Equally, there were clearly wider implications in what was happening as far as the Government as a whole were concerned. That is why the Cabinet Office and Downing Street were engaged.

[27 August, page 52, line 6]

Q ….. Do you know whether or not Dr Kelly was told about the draft Q and A material and the Q and A material as deployed?

A. I do not, no. But can I make clear that I did not see either of these documents. They were not submitted to my office. That would not be something that I would normally deal with.

[27 August, page 55, line 5]

Q … … it rather looks like at the Tuesday morning meeting there is no-one from the Ministry of Defence actually taking an active role in it; is that fair or unfair?

A. Well, I think as a matter of fact it must be fair, although, as I understood it, Kevin Tebbit did come back from Portsmouth before that meeting concluded. So I thought that he was present for at least part of the meeting and certainly was present in the course of drafting material following on from that meeting.

[27 August, page 65, line 25]

Q …. So your understanding was that this was part of a fall back after the first public letter to the ISC had been rejected, to get the BBC to confirm whether or not Dr Kelly was the source; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And as far as you understood, it was not intended that Dr Kelly's name should ever be made public until he had been confirmed as the source; is that right?

A. That was certainly my concern, yes. That we should only act when we were sure about his role.

Q. What is also distributed for deployment that day and the following day when queries come in about the press statement are the Q and A that was actually finalised. That is at MoD/1/62. If we look at the second -

LORD HUTTON: Just before we go on to that, is it your evidence, Secretary of State, that this MoD statement was issued solely for the purpose of trying to persuade the BBC to reveal its source or was there another reason behind it?

A. That was certainly part of it, but throughout I had been concerned, as I think I have indicated, my Lord, to the Inquiry already, that we were in possession of significant information about a potential witness relevant to Parliamentary proceedings, relevant to the public debate; and I, as each day went by, was increasingly concerned that we were not making this information known, certainly to the Foreign Affairs Committee but to the wider public.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. I was very conscious that we risked being accused of a cover-up. I remember having a conversation about what would happen if, say, a Sunday newspaper on the Sunday had got wind of the fact that someone had come forward in the Ministry of Defence. I am sure that they would have accused us of covering that fact up.

[27 August, page 69, line 22]

A ….. I did not see this Q and A and played no part in its preparation, so it is a little difficult for me to comment about any underlying purpose. But if you are suggesting that there was some deliberate effort here to identify Dr Kelly, I say that is absolutely wrong and certainly no effort by me or my office to do that. As I have emphasised throughout, my concern was to identify the facts, and the key fact was whether Dr Kelly was or was not Andrew Gilligan's single source.

LORD HUTTON: But you have also said that in your earlier discussions with Sir Kevin Tebbit he had said that the fact that Dr Kelly had come forward might enable the public record to be corrected. I think you had accepted that that was a consideration in your mind as well.

A. Yes, my Lord, but that was only on the basis that he was clearly Andrew Gilligan's single source.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. Yes. But we have heard that in the course of the week, and indeed over the preceding weekend, the feeling had been growing amongst some very senior officials that, in fact, Dr Kelly was the single source. Were you aware of that, and in the week beginning 7th July?

A. I cannot comment on - I think your Lordship is referring, probably, to David Omand's assumptions at that stage.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. I was not aware of David Omand's thinking. I was aware that Sir Kevin Tebbit, having on the Friday evening readily accepted the advice from Richard Hatfield about his assessment of Dr Kelly's position, thought again on the Saturday, particularly after seeing the article by Tom Baldwin in The Times; and I think as a result of that he wrote a further letter to David Omand indicating that he felt there was now more evidence pointing to the fact that Dr Kelly was the single source. So there was a change in his thinking. But again, I do not think I or anyone else at that stage was sure enough, certainly from my position, to name Dr Kelly, because I think that would have been unfair to Dr Kelly.

[27 August, page 75, line 2]

MR DINGEMANS: One other way of battening down the hatches would have not been to make a press statement. At this stage you do not know it is Dr Kelly, you are making the press statement as part of the fall back plan to try to get the BBC to confirm whether it is or not. If you make the press statement, for all the reasons you have given, the press are going to go into a detailed hunt for that person; why not just avoid making the press statement?

A. Because of the need to acknowledge the fact that someone had come forward. There are a number of factors relevant to that. It is not only the attitude of the Foreign Affairs Committee; it is the fact that at some stage, for example, Government would have to respond to the Foreign Affairs Committee's conclusions and inevitably the timing of our knowledge about a potential witness would have to be made known. And I do not think it is - I do not think you should underestimate the view that Parliament would take of a Government department deliberately withholding such information.

[27 August, page 78, line 25]

A … I am sure from the moment they became aware that someone had come forward that journalists would be making determined efforts to discover his name. It was something Dr Kelly was warned about on the Friday when he first spoke to Richard Hatfield. I think it is something most people involved in this would think inevitable, that at some stages journalists would identify him. In a sense it is surprising, given the reason he came forward in the first place, that he was not identified sooner.

Q. Can I take you to 10th July, when his name does become public. There is a letter of request -

LORD HUTTON: Just before we go on to that. You said, Secretary of State, that people had assumed it was inevitable that his name would become public. Now, against that background, I appreciate you have emphasised that on a number of occasions, is it a fair summary then to suggest that Dr Kelly's name became public because of questions put by the press, not because it was the wish of the Government that the name should become public, and you hoped that the name would not become public for as long as possible but nonetheless it was always accepted that it was inevitable that it would become public? Just amplify that or qualify that in any way. I appreciate I have sought to summarise what has been quite lengthy evidence on your part.

A. I had from the beginning recognised that there was a significant probability that his name would become public, not least because the reason why he wrote to the Ministry of Defence in the first place, as I understand it, was because his views were so distinctive on a particular aspect on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that a colleague had identified his views, in effect, in the mouth of Andrew Gilligan giving evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. So those close to Dr Kelly recognised that he must have had some contact with Andrew Gilligan because Andrew Gilligan was repeating well known views that Dr Kelly held.

That, I am sure, was the reason why Richard Hatfield warned Dr Kelly, on the Friday afternoon in the first interview, that there was every prospect of his name becoming known. It was obviously something, as well, that had been taken into account in securing Dr Kelly's consent to the issuing of the press statement.

So at each stage there was a recognition that his name would become known. What I am resisting, certainly as far as I am concerned, is any suggestion that there was some sort of conspiracy, some sort of strategy, some sort of plan covertly to make his name known. That was not the case.

[27 August, page 100, line 6]

Q. Were you aware that there has been some evidence that Mr Taylor, who I think is your special adviser, is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Had confirmed Dr Kelly's name to journalists?

A. Hmm.

Q. Were you aware of that?

A. I was not specifically aware at the time but I - excuse me. I have learned since that that happened, yes.

Q. And what is your view on that?

A. Well, I assume that that was consistent with the question and answer process that had been agreed within the department. I do not think it occurred in any earlier timeframe.

Q. The question and answers material that your special adviser knows about but you did not?

A. I did not see the question and answer, but I was obviously aware of the advice that I had received that if the right name was given to an MoD press officer they should confirm it. I am not suggesting - I am not suggesting, for a moment, that I was not aware of that; and obviously my special adviser would have been aware of it as well.

Q. Do you know whether Dr Kelly was told that that was a proposed approach?

A. He was certainly told and agreed to the fact that a press statement was to be issued because that had been done on the - at least on the Tuesday, the day before the events you are describing.

Q. But I have taken you to the first draft of the Q and A which says: can't tell you anything until we have spoken to Dr Kelly and I have taken you to the second draft which appears to have been deployed which changes. Was Dr Kelly told of the change as far as you know?

A. Not as far as I know.

[28 August, page 49, line 20]

LORD HUTTON: Prime Minister, I have asked other witnesses why these very senior officials were all concerned with this matter. There was a discussion, and Mr Powell discussed with Sir David Manning, Sir David Omand and Mr John Scarlett. Why were so many senior officials concerned with this?

A. I think it was really that this was - I mean, this whole issue was still the dominant issue. You had the Foreign Affairs Select Committee report on the Monday into really the nature of the allegation. Then suddenly at the last minute comes forward somebody who might be the source. And I think there was a real concern on the part of everyone - we were in a quandary, frankly, right from the very beginning. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee is about to report on the Monday, the report is going to deal precisely with the Andrew Gilligan allegations and here is somebody who suddenly emerges as the person who may be the source of those allegations.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. I think the reason why people were involved at a senior level in the Civil Service were first of all that it was very important. Secondly, certainly as the matter developed, I was very, very keen, indeed insistent, that we did have the senior people involved because I anticipated right from the very beginning that there were going to be a lot of questions asked afterwards about: when did you know? Why did you not tell the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee? How could you let them make their report on Monday when you were in possession of information plainly relevant to their report? That was I think the explanation as to why people at a senior level were involved.

LORD HUTTON: Again, I think having heard a considerable amount of evidence the reason may be obvious, but why was this a quandary? What was the quandary which you were concerned had arisen?

A. The quandary really was this: we had never really wanted the Foreign Affairs Committee to look into this; we thought the ISC should do it. But they had and that is their right to do so and they had conducted their investigation. Suddenly, as I say, at the last minute forward comes somebody who may be the source of the allegation that was at the centre of the FAC report. What did you do? Did you inform the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee immediately, which is one possibility and which I have no doubt afterwards people would have said to us we should have done. Did you try and get greater clarity of whether this was indeed the source or not? So how did you handle this? The reason why I thought it was very, very important to involve the senior officials is that the whole allegation around the Foreign Affairs Committee report and all the rest of it was about the propriety of the Government. Here is an issue that also seems to reflect on propriety and I am in receipt of that information.

So I thought it was essential not in a sense to pass the responsibility to them - in the end I have full responsibility for the decisions that are taken - but in order to make absolutely sure that when at a later point, as I thought there would be, not obviously in the context which we are talking now, but people would say: when did you know? What did you know? Who did you tell? I would be able to say: we handled this by the book, in the sense of with the advice of senior civil servants. Not, as I say, in order to pass responsibility to them, but in order to make sure that this was not, as it were, the politicians driving the system but us taking a consensus view as to what the right way to proceed was.

The Times story today, whether accurate or not, will increase the likelihood that over the weekend other journalists will indeed identify and name the BBC's source as our official. (He is as I indicated in my earlier letter well known in media/academic circles.)

[28 August, page 55, line 7]

A. I mean, the two things that I took out of this were: (1) that it was more probable he was indeed the source; and (2), that this thing was already washing round the media.

Q. Or may well be washing round other parts of the media, as it were?

A. It was in The Times and, you know, I think that they were - I certainly took that as an indication that he thought this was - you know, that this thing could come out at any point.

Q. Had you been told that the matter might come out at any point at this stage?

A. I cannot recall, but I mean I think - I would use my own judgment about that, to be frank.

Q. Your own judgment was?

A. My own judgment was obviously there was a - with an issue with so much political focus on it as this, when someone was being interviewed and reinterviewed and presumably people were talking about it within the system, then you have an article in The Times, I think I would have thought there was a fair possibility it would leak in any event.

[28 August, page 61, line 6]

Q. So you had understood, at this stage, that any public involvement of Dr Kelly was to be on the basis of his cooperation?

A. Yes. I mean, I think what was - look, right at the very outset, as I say, part of this difficulty was he had come forward. We were in receipt of this information. You know, the question was: what do we now do with that information, in particular in relation to the FAC, which was a concern; and I cannot recall exactly when I was told this, but I think there was certainly - it was said that he realised that he might end up having to give evidence.

Q. He realised he might end up giving evidence?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you recall who said that to you?

A. I do not but certainly by the time we got to 7th July, I mean the basis of the meeting was that he had already realised his name would in all likelihood come out.

Q. You have mentioned your concerns that the Government might be accused of a cover-up in relation to the FAC. Were you, at this stage, keen that the FAC reopen their inquiry or did you have any view on that?

A. No, I mean - look, if I had really wanted the FAC to do it, I think I could perfectly properly have put that information before the FAC actually on the Saturday or Sunday. I really was not sure what the right way to handle this issue was, but I knew that what we could not do was be in a situation where we were accused of misleading the FAC and that the reason why I thought it was so important to involve the senior officials, as I was saying to his Lordship just a moment or two ago, was in order to make it - you know, to make sure that we were operating in a way that they were content with, and therefore if at a later time people say: why on earth did you not give this information immediately to the FAC over the weekend, I could say: there were discussions going on. It was being handled by the MoD. This was the advice given to us by officials. Not as I say to put off responsibility. Responsibility is mine in the end. I take the decisions as Prime Minister. But in order to be able to say we had played it by the book.

[28 August, page 65, line 8]

Q. The outcome of that meeting was, I think, to conclude what had already been provisionally decided, that he should have a second interview. Do you recall that?

A. Yes. I mean, I think, as I recollect it, it was already the fact that he was going to be reinterviewed and I thought: well, that at least takes care of this for the moment. So, it is only after the reinterview you then reach the point when you really have to take a decision. But throughout Monday I should say that I mean the two things that seemed to us very, very clear, there was some surprise we expressed to each other on the Monday morning that it had not already leaked, and I think were was no doubt in anyone's mind that if on reinterview it was clear that he was in all probability the source then we were going to have to disclose that.

[28 August, page 71, line 22]

Q. So in the light of those considerations, who decided to do what?

A. Well, we decided that the - how do we then proceed? We cannot conceal this information. What is the best way of proceeding? And I mean it was a discussion about it and I think the consensus was that the best thing was that David Omand should write to the Chairman of the ISC, copy it to the FAC for courtesy and then make public the fact that the source had come forward.

Q. Why was there a need to make public the fact that a source had come forward?

A. For two reasons really. I think, first of all, we were at any point concerned, as I said a moment or two ago - I think we were quite surprised on the Monday it had not already come out, but we thought that it was likely to come out at any particular point. And, secondly, because once you had copied it to the FAC - I mean, I thought there was a remote possibility the FAC might decide not to interview him, but I rather thought that they would.

Q. And that was the reason that it was decided to publicise the ISC letter?

A. Well, that you had to at least - in respect of the fact that there was somebody who had come forward, my concern was to get that information not concealed but, as it were, out there so that no-one could say afterwards: look, this is something that you people were trying to cover up or conceal from a House of Commons Committee. And that was the view of the meeting. Again I say this in absolutely no sense to say this was the civil servants' decision rather than my decision. I take full responsibility for the decisions. I stand by them. I believe they were the right decisions. But the advice also of Sir David, in particular, who was, if you like, the key person for me, was that it would have been improper to have withheld this from the FAC.

[28 August, page 76, line 24]

Q …. Were you aware of any assistance with the drafting of this press statement being given by officials within No.10?

A. I think certainly it came to Jonathan and I may have scanned my eye over it myself, but I cannot absolutely recall that.

Q. And I think we have heard that there was a drafting session in Mr Smith's room because this was on his computer.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. And that press statement was issued at about 5.45 on 8th July, and there has been evidence that it was read over to Dr Kelly.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. Also deployed was what was called defensive Q and A material.

A. Hmm.

Q. Were you aware of the existence of the defensive Q and A material?

A. I was not, but I, you know, would have thought it perfectly natural that the MoD had to prepare to field inquiries. I assume they had been doing that for several days.

Q. Now, these questions and answers, it appears, assisted the journalists in identifying Dr Kelly. Do you know whether any view had been taken that that should happen?

A. No, I do not; but I have to say that I think that the basic view of this was - you see, we were quite clear the name was going to come out in one way or another, and as far as I am aware, I think someone said this at the meetings, Dr Kelly was aware of that too. I think it was decided to do this by way of a public statement, not mentioning the name, (a) because we were not entirely clear, (b) I think to give at least a little bit of time to us; but the important thing was that at least the fact that someone had come forward saying I am the source was no longer something we possessed. We had actually been open and said: this is the case. As I say, I did not see the MoD Q and A, but I think the basic view would have been not to, as it were, offer the name but on the other hand not to mislead people. I think there was also some concern frankly if you ended up with a great scrabble as to who was the name, you know, other people might be thought of as the name who were not.

[28 August, page 80, line 9]

LORD HUTTON: Now, do you think, perhaps looking at it in retrospect, that it might have been a more appropriate procedure if the source had simply been named in the statement?

A. I have obviously thought very carefully about whether there were alternative ways of dealing with this. One alternative was certainly to make an open statement and name him upfront. I think the reason for the hesitation there was: well, we could not be absolutely sure about this. I seem to recollect, but I cannot be sure who said this and exactly when it was said, that there was some issue as to whether Dr Kelly himself did not want to be named in what I think was called the first wave of media focus on it. But I mean the only thing I would say, my Lord, is that if we had named him in the statement, I mean - I do not think the outcome in terms of him appearing in front of the FAC or any of the rest of it would have been any different.

[28 August, page 83, line 12]

Q. Was there any discussion about the pressure that Dr Kelly might be exposed to when you were having these meetings on 8th July?

A. Obviously one of the things that was part of the conversation that we were having was what Dr Kelly did, what sort of a person was he, what experience did he have. I mean, all I can say is that there is nothing in the discussion that we had that would have alerted us to him being anything other than someone, you know, of a certain robustness who was used to dealing with the interchange between politics and the media. Having said that, incidentally, it is never, ever a pleasant thing; indeed it is a deeply unpleasant thing for someone to come suddenly into the media spotlight. Certainly we were aware of that. It is one of the reasons why the press statement I think it was said at the meeting should be agreed with Dr Kelly. But there was in my view no way of avoiding the fact that you could not keep this information private.

[28 August, page 94, line 12]

Q. Or another way of proceeding may have been having disclosed that this person has come forward, not to say anything more either about his status or about his name?

A. Yes. The only difficulty there I think is that people would have felt that if you got a great swirl around, well, who is the person, you know, and a whole lot of people being named and identified, then before you know where you are, they have the wrong person. Remember this was still very much in the context this is somebody - I think they somewhat shifted the way they described him but the original allegation was this was someone in charge of the process of drawing up the dossier. Not who had contributed to the dossier, in charge of it.

So I think there was some anxiety within the MoD, I think I was not particularly aware of this but there was some anxiety in the MoD that in the difficult circumstances what you could not do is have a whole lot of speculation going on about a lot of other people being the source.

[4 September, page 77, line 11]

A. The meeting started, as always, with looking at the press cuttings, and the key issue that morning, the broadcast media as well, was the MoD statement of the previous evening and the BBC's reply, both to the press statement and in a separate parallel process Mr Davies' reply to Mr Hoon's letter of 8th July.

[4 September, page 81, line 8]

Q. Was anything mentioned about the Q and A material?

A. At the end of a discussion on how to follow up the letter to Mr Davies there was a brief discussion on what we should do if journalists were to ring and put the name directly to the Department of who the official was. I would not call it a discussion of the Q and A material. There was a discussion of one of the questions, which I have since learnt was in the Q and A material.

Q. Was there any discussion about the other questions in the Q and A material?

A. No, not -

Q. Was he a member of the UNSCOM et cetera?

A. No, to the best of my recollection we only discussed the rationale for what to do if the name was put directly to the department.

[4 September, page 83, line 2]

Q. Have you found out since whether or not Ms Teare discussed this Q and A material with anyone?

A. I have only learnt through the course of the Inquiry that she discussed it with the Permanent Secretary's office, but not at the time.

Q. Not from what the Inquiry has heard, from our own research at the Ministry of Defence. No-one has told you, as it were?

A. I did not see the question and answer brief until after Dr Kelly had died; and I did not therefore ask any questions about it in this timeframe.

[4 September, page 84, line 8]

Q. Why was it decided to confirm the name if the correct name had been put forward?

A. There was a discussion that morning about that approach; and we explicitly talked through if a direct name was put then it was agreed that it would be not tenable to say "no" because that would be to lie.

[18 September, page 85, line 8]

Q. I want to ask you first about the nature of Q and A briefings. Is there anything unusual about the production and use of Q and A briefings in Government departments?

A. No, far from that. The production of Q and A material is standard practice across Whitehall. The Q and A tries to anticipate the sort of questions that the media may ask the press office on a given issue and to provide factual information in answer to those.

Q. So what are they intended to achieve?

A. Essentially they are to provide or to enable - they are to enable press officers to handle media inquiries on a specific subject particularly when they may not be familiar with that subject. They also ensure consistency of approach. But the material is not deployed by the press office unless it has been cleared by the policy officials concerned; and you know they are used in a reactive way. They are not issued in their entirety in any way. So if a journalist asks a specific question, then that specific part of the Q and A will be used. But they are not issued as a whole.

[18 September, page 88, line 6]

Q. Was that statement, the statement produced on 4th July, supported by a Q and A document?

A. The statement was, as I understand it, prepared by Martin Howard and Richard Hatfield in the Permanent Secretary's office and was agreed there. The Chief Press Officer and I recognised that should we need to deploy this over the weekend, and it would only have been on a reactive basis, we would need -

LORD HUTTON: Sorry, I think it is clear but if you could explain a bit more what you mean by reactive basis.

A. Sorry my Lord.

LORD HUTTON: It is quite clear. I just want it for the sake of the record to be clear.

A. We would not have volunteered that statement. It would have only ever been used in whatever form if the story itself had broken in the media over the weekend.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

MR LLOYD-JONES: So it is a reactive statement in that sense, does it need Q and A material?

A. If it got to the circumstances where it had to be deployed then, as is the norm, we would have to have some Q and A materials because inevitably we would be asked questions related to the statement. So yes, we would need to have some material.

Q. Was any Q and A material drawn up during the 4th July?

A. Yes, the Chief Press Officer and I did draw up a draft.

Q. The Chief Press Officer is Mrs Kate Wilson; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. You drew up a draft. What was the source of the material in the draft?

A. The source of the material in the draft was the information that she had obtained from the meeting in the PUS's office she had attended earlier in the day. But the draft that we came up with was very raw, very green.

[18 September, page 95, line 13]

Q. So what line was the draft Q and A brief intended to support?

A. The line that the Q and A was intended to support was that, as I understood the policy at the time, we were not prepared to volunteer Dr Kelly's name; but also, as I say, I had had time to consider some of the implications of the situation of when names were actually put to us, which I felt was, you know - it would be impossible to escape if a statement was issued, because I felt that journalists would immediately work very, very hard to try to identify the person who was unnamed in the MoD statement.

So we had to consider there what was the best way of trying to - and indeed the fairest way of trying to deal with the situations when names would be put to us. We felt it was possible that people who were not involved in this could wrongly be identified by the media. So we were seeking to prevent that happening. I think that that position is reflected in that second draft.

[18 September, page 107, line 17]

Q. So what did you do about that?

A. I said to the Permanent Secretary that, you know: Martin and I have agreed between us a Q and A, you know, I need your approval before it could be used.

Q. Did you show it to him?

A. I did.

Q. Did he read it?

A. Yes he did.

Q. What did he say?

A. He read it through and gave me approval for it to be deployed.

Q. Was anything said about asking Dr Kelly to approve the Q and A brief?

A. No, that was not discussed, nor would I have expected it to be so.

Q. Why do you say that?

A. Well, Q and A, as I say - to prepare Q and A material in support of a statement is standard practice Whitehall-wide. It was essentially factual material, the contents of which I was sure it was accurate because I had agreed it with Martin Howard. As I say, Dr Kelly had also been made aware that his name was likely to enter the public domain.

[18 September, page 110, line 11]

Q. Before we get to the next day, during that evening did you receive any calls?

A. I received a number of media enquiries, yes.

Q. Were any of them enquiring about the identity?

A. Some of them actually asked me what the name of the individual was.

Q. Did you tell them?

A. No.

Q. Did you tell any of them that although you would not reveal the name, you would confirm it if they already knew it?

A. Yes.

Q. Why did you consider it appropriate to say that?

A. I felt it was necessary to explain that because I wanted to ensure a system where the media would actually check with us before they printed a name or broadcast a name.

Q. What interest were you seeking to protect by taking that course?

A. Essentially, it would have two purposes. One was that it would prevent those who were not involved from wrongly being named in the media; and, secondly, it would give us an indication, and therefore we could pass the information on, if Dr Kelly's name was coming forward.

LORD HUTTON: Pass information on to whom?

A. I am sorry, my Lord?

LORD HUTTON: Pass information on to whom that Dr Kelly name was coming up?

A. No, I mean we would get - if we had a system whereby journalists were coming to us to check the name first, we would get a heads up that Dr Kelly's name was likely to appear.

LORD HUTTON: I thought you said you could pass information on.

A. In that we could alert Dr Kelly, I mean, and alert others in the department.

[18 September, page 116, line 13]

Q. Moving on, then, to 9th July, was there a Secretary of State's briefing meeting that morning?

A. Yes, there was.

Q. Did you attend it?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. How clear is your recollection as to what was discussed at the meeting?

A. I mean, I recall there was a meeting. I can recall what the key topics of conversation were, but I do not recall exactly who said what.

Q. Do you recall who was there?

A. The Secretary of State, his principal private secretary, Richard Taylor, special adviser, myself. I think that was all.

Q. What is your recollection as to what was discussed?

A. Well, it was a fairly brief meeting, because I know we had another one that was about to start very shortly afterwards. But my recollection is that the bulk of the meeting was to do with discussions of how we might follow up with the correspondence with the BBC.

Q. Was anything said about the Q and A material?

A. I think it is likely that I might have run through the - an outline of the Q and A material and the approach that we were adopting.

Q. Would you have had any particular reason to do that?

A. No, other than at that meeting it has several purposes: one, I go through the press coverage of the morning and I would normally outline how we were handling sort of main issues of the day. And it would be in that line that I would have done so.

[18 September, page 121, line 22]

Q. Were you aware what the press office was doing on that evening of the 9th to assist Dr Kelly?

A. On the evening of the 9th, again once the name had been confirmed, we were anxious that we should identify and have ready to go, or in fact send, a press officer to Dr Kelly's house.

Q. What would have been the point of sending a press officer?

A. The point had been that had Dr Kelly chosen to stay there, the likelihood, in fact the certainty, was that large numbers of media would turn up outside his house, and the role of the press officer is to act as a buffer between the media and Dr Kelly and to give him advice on handling and to deal with the media on the scene.

Q. Do you know why that was not done sooner?

A. It was not done sooner because (a) the name had not been confirmed; but also we were working on the assumption that once the name had been confirmed it would take journalists a number of hours to work out where he lives because, in the normal way, they would go through the electoral roll and then operate a policy of elimination. We had assumed after the name had been confirmed there would be a couple of hours - a few hours, actually where we could arrange to send someone.

Q. Was a press officer in fact sent to Dr Kelly's home?

A. No, a press officer was not sent but one was identified and one was on standby ready to go.

[18 September, page 123, line 12]

Q. Finally, and very briefly, Ms Teare, the FAC hearing took place on 15th July and Dr Kelly appeared to give evidence. Did the press office provide any assistance to Dr Kelly in respect of that appearance?

A. Yes, a press officer was sent to accompany Dr Kelly.

Q. What was the press officer's role on that occasion?

A. Essentially to ensure that the media did not hassle or pester Dr Kelly in any way.

[18 September, page 123, line 25]

Q. Ms Teare, let us start with the 9th July. The first identification was made at 5.30 approximately in the evening.

A. It was 5.30 or very shortly thereafter.

Q. Yes. Why was it that Dr Kelly was not notified of this fact at all until he telephoned at about 8 o'clock?

A. Well, as I say, the Chief Press Officer rang the Permanent Secretary's office and they were going to make the appropriate arrangements for him to be told. We felt that - it was certainly my view that there were two things: 1. It would be better for him to talk to someone who knew him about this; and also that while the press office role was there to provide practical media handling advice, you know, we did not have any responsibilities for a welfare role; and again, we thought it was better that his line manager should contact him so that he could also discuss, you know, availability of hotel accommodation if that was what Dr Kelly was seeking. Now, I understand that Dr Wells did speak to him but you would need to check the times with him.

Q. Had you alerted Dr Wells to the fact that he might be needed in order to inform Dr Kelly of his identification?

A. Not specifically, but -

Q. Why not?

A. Because I did not think that it -

Q. Why had he not been notified he might be needed as a matter or urgency to telephone Dr Kelly?

A. I think that the way the situation was unfolding at the time, Dr Kelly was in very regular contact with all of those involved - sorry, Dr Wells was in very regular contact with all of those involved, and that the Permanent Secretary's office had numbers to contact him in and out of working hours.

Q. I do not follow that. I am sure it is my fault. Had anybody contacted Dr Wells to say: you may be needed at short notice to contact Dr Kelly to tell him he has been identified by the press?

A. That had not been done so by the press office, that is all I can say.

Q. Why could not Mrs Wilson telephone Dr Kelly direct? She had done so the night before after all.

A. She could have done that but, as I have explained, we felt that it was better that Dr Kelly should receive this news from his line manager. As I say, we did not have in our gift any arrangements vis a vis hotel accommodation should Dr Kelly have decided that he wanted to take that up.

Q. You do not think, with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been very much better if Dr Kelly had had something like two hours' notice rather than 10 minutes' notice to leave the house?

A. I think that what was important in handling this situation and in the media advice he was given was the crucial time was when the statement was first issued on the 8th; and on that day Dr Kelly was contacted. He was told of the very high levels of media interest and he was advised, at that point, to consider staying with friends; and I think that actually was the most important time.

Who is the official?

We are not prepared to name the individual involved.

Why not?

We have released all the relevant details. There is nothing to gain by revealing the name of the individual who has come forward voluntarily.

What is his name and current post?

We wouldn't normally volunteer a name.

If the correct name is given, we can confirm it and say that he is senior advisor to the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat.

[18 September, page 131, line 15]

Q. Let us go on to the draft as used. Would you like to look at that? It is MoD/1/62. Do you accept that there is a change between, at any rate, the first draft that you prepared and this draft with regard to the naming: "If the correct name is given [underlined] we can confirm it …", and so on. Do you accept there is a change there?

A. I will accept it reflects a different approach.

Q. Who authorised that approach?

A. As I say, these documents were evolving and reflecting my advice, at the time, on the basis of the information I had at the time.

Q. Would you like to answer the question?

A. I am trying to help you with the question. And accordingly no decision was taken - you say: who took the decision? I did not consider that any of this material was available for use by the press office until it had been agreed by a senior official and approved. Other than that, it was just a document that reflected my advice and my views and was subject to approval.

Q. Yes. Who approved it?

A. It was agreed with Martin Howard and it was approved by the Permanent Secretary.

Q. Thank you. Did the Secretary of State see this draft?

A. Not to the best of my knowledge.

Q. No?

A. No.

Q. What about the routine press meeting on 9th July which you attended and which other people attended as well?

A. That was the day after the draft had been approved.

Q. Yes. Did the Secretary of State see that document at that meeting?

A. I do not recall.

Q. You see, we have heard some evidence to suggest that he did, and that there was some brief discussion about this document at that meeting.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. You know that, I expect. Do you agree or disagree with that evidence or do you not remember?

A. I do not recall there being a long discussion about the Q and A.

Q. Nobody said that there was a long discussion.

A. No.

Q. A brief discussion is what I put to you.

A. I cannot recall the detail, though I think it is highly likely that I would have outlined some of the material in the Q and A, but I cannot give you a verbatim account.

Q. To the Secretary of State?

A. Yes.

Q. And no doubt in order to outline the material you would have had the document with you.

A. Yes, I suspect I would have done.

Q. And no doubt you would have shown it to him?

A. He may have already had it. He may have already -

Q. Do you know or not know?

A. I do not know. I did not show him a document at that meeting, because, as I say, the bulk of that meeting was about how to follow up the correspondence with the BBC.

[18 September, page 135, line 18]

Q. … One other matter. If the MoD did not wish to release Dr Kelly's name, could it not, in response to an enquiry, say this: we will neither confirm nor deny any name?

A. That is one approach, but I had considered -

Q. What is wrong with it? You were about to tell us, I apologise, I interrupted you.

A. It is one that I had considered; but again, it did not deal with the difficulty of other people who were involved in the similar field from being named in the media; and that was something we felt that was not acceptable.

Q. So on the one hand it was not acceptable that they might be wrongly identified.

A. It was not just a question of wrongly identified, because certainly my view was that anyone that was named would actually be subject to very high levels of media interest.

Q. Yes. Did you consider, though, that if that did happen it would not be through the agency of the MoD, would it, because you had not either confirmed nor denied their name?

A. but the effect would have been the same; and what I was seeking to avoid was that individuals who had nothing to do with this situation were subject to high levels of media intrusion.

Q. Do you know whether any assessment was undertaken as to the pros and cons of releasing information of the kind that appears in the statement and in the Q and As which would lead to Dr Kelly's identification, against adopting a stone wall attitude, if I can put it in that way, of declining to cooperate with the press at all? Was anything like that undertaken?

A. I am not aware of anything, no, nor would I expect to be.

[18 September, page 137, line 6]

MR KNOX: You said in your evidence that production of Q and A material is quite normal in a case when a press announcement is being put out, is that correct?

A. Yes. I think I said "standard practice".

Q. Is it standard practice that the following should happen: first, that a press announcement is agreed with a civil servant concerned in a story which contains some information about that civil servant but at the same time Q and A briefings are prepared which give more details about the identity of that civil servant over and above those agreed in the press statement?

A. I cannot agree with you that it is standard; and the reason that I cannot accept, you know - accept that, is that the situation with which we had to contend was totally without precedent, so there was not, you know, such as a thing as standard practice. There was no yardstick with which to judge it. That is one of the reasons why it was such a difficult situation.

[18 September, page 143, line 2]

Q. Let us just deal with the matter, as a matter of fairness. Dr Kelly is called in the afternoon in order to agree a press statement with him; that is right, is it not?

A. (Nods).

Q. He would naturally suppose from that that certain information is going to be released about him in that press statement.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. He is not told by the MoD that further information will be released about him by the MoD press office, is he?

A. No, he is not, but as I say -

LORD HUTTON: Yes, carry on Ms Teare. You were going to add something.

A. As I say, it is standard Civil Service practice when any statement is released that a Q and A is also produced to support it which contains some factual information related to the statement. That is not an unusual practice.

MR KNOX: I understand "unusual" or "not unusual". What I am trying to understand is this: why did you not tell Dr Kelly this is what you were proposing to do?

A. I saw there to be no reason to tell him, because the material that we had was in the Q and A, it was largely factual, and that Dr Kelly had already been forewarned that his name was likely to enter the public domain. And what is more, we - when - you know, in the run up to that happening we would - I knew that we would be in touch with Dr Kelly to provide him with advice on media handling. So I saw no role for me to insist that the Q and A should be run by him.

Q. Was there any reason for not telling Dr Kelly what you were intending to do in answer to questions from journalists?

A. No, there was not any reason why he could not have been told. As I say, there was no discussion of it because it was not felt to be an issue.

Q. Would it not have been better and fairer to Dr Kelly to give him the full picture? Namely: (1) we will put out this press statement; (2) if we get asked certain questions we are going to have to answer them this way and thereby reveal further details about you. Would that not have been the fairer way of dealing with it?

A. I do not actually accept it was unfair because Dr Kelly - for a start, I felt that Dr Kelly's name was likely to emerge because he was quite well known in media circles anyway. But on the substance of the Q and A material, I do not see that there was anything there that we needed to consult him about in any way. As I say, if he had not have been - if he had not been told and it had not been discussed with him and that he had no expectation of his name becoming public, if he in no way had been given to believe that might happen, then I think there would have been a question of fairness. But I do not see it at all in this case.

Is it X (ie the correct name)?

If the correct name is put to us from a number of callers, we will need to tell the individual we are going to confirm his name before doing so.

[18 September, page 148, line 25]

Q. We know in the eventual Q and A you prepare there is no equivalent provision for telling Dr Kelly that his name is now being put to journalists.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. Presumably, therefore, there was a conscious decision to change from the approach you see in the first of these Q and As I have showed you to the eventual approach adopted in the final Q and A, is that right?

A. As I have tried to explain already, it is not - when you say there was a decision to move from one to the other, that suggests that the existing one was a freestanding approved document; it was not. The drafts of the Q and A represent the information and my thinking at that point in time -

LORD HUTTON: Ms Teare, I appreciate the point you have been making that the question and answer has to be approved by a policy maker -

A. And indeed it - sorry.

LORD HUTTON: - but if you would look at the question this way: was it the position that your thinking on this matter was changing, in that in this draft you had said: if the correct name is given we will have to tell the individual we are going to confirm his name before doing so; and there is a change from that to the latter draft where that does not appear. What was your thinking as to that change, contrary to anything - just what was in your mind?

A. Yes, to get from the second to the third?

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. That reflected the development of my thinking, also that I had acquired more knowledge about the situation, because I had been told, during the course of the 8th, that Dr Kelly had been forewarned that his name was likely to become public.

[18 September, page 155, line 12]

Q. Ms Teare, with hindsight, thinking back on what happened, the inevitable effect of the Q and A approach was this surely: first, it was likely to increase the interest of journalists because you have this almost game of 20 questions; is that not right?

A. I do not accept that. I mean, I do not understand what you mean by why the Q and A would encourage that. As I said, the Q and A is produced in support of any statement; and in terms of the guessing game, the guessing game was of the journalists' own making, it was not ours.

Q. Do you think it did have the effect of increasing the journalists' interests, the way that information was gradually being given to them?

A. No, I do not. I think what stimulated the journalists' interest was the release of the statement; and it was on that same day that Dr Kelly was contacted by the press office, warned of the high level of media interest and, as I say, offered media handling advice there and then.

Q. Did not the approach also mean this: that Dr Kelly's name would come out at a wholly unpredictable time?

A. Short of actually including Dr Kelly's name in the original statement, I do not see how we could have controlled when his name would have emerged.

Q. It would follow, would it not, also, that Dr Kelly himself would not have any proper notice of the fact or time at which his name was going to be revealed? That must be right.

A. Dr Kelly was told on the evening of the 8th July that a statement had been issued, there were very high levels of media interest and that he might want to think about staying with friends. That to my mind was the key point, because once we had issued the statement then journalists from that point were going to try hard to identify the individual. He was made aware of that high level of interest.

Q. Yes. Would it not have been better to adopt a rather more upfront approach with Dr Kelly, in hindsight, and simply agree a particular time at which his name could be given to the press, so he would know exactly what was going on?

A. I think we certainly are talking hindsight there. The position that we were in was one where, as we have heard, although the idea of including Dr Kelly's name with the original statement that Kevin Tebbit had asked should be pursued, it was not in fact pursued. The position that we would have put Dr Kelly in is that we would have been finishing, finalising the statement and then sort of springing on him the notion of including his name in it. So I think that would not have been fair either.

Q. You did not want to spring anything on Dr Kelly, is that right?

A. I did not want to say to Dr Kelly, with a few moments - no more than a few moments to consider it: we are going to put your name in the statement.

LORD HUTTON: Just on that point, Ms Teare, and I appreciate you say we are discussing the matter with hindsight, looking at what happened and bearing in mind the point you made that Mrs Wilson in fact rang him on the evening of the 8th July and said to consider alternative accommodation. But looking back, with hindsight, might it not have been better to have said to Dr Kelly that the MoD were proposing to name him in the statement but it would not released for 24 hours and it would be released at a particular time? Suppose you would have said to him on the Monday afternoon: it will be released at 6pm on the Tuesday afternoon. Then he would have known precisely when his name was going to come into the public arena, and if he had wanted to leave home he would have had the time to do it.

A. Again, with hindsight, that could have been a possibility; but I do not think - again, to get to that position you would have to unpick so many of the things that had happened.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. As I say, because the issue of including Dr Kelly's name in the original statement was never addressed with him.

LORD HUTTON: I quite appreciate that and you are making the point a lot of things would have to be unpicked. But even on that basis, it would have been open, let us say over the weekend, or on Monday 7th July, to have had a meeting with Dr Kelly and to have said to him: this is a matter of great public importance, the Ministry of Defence feels, because of the interests of the FAC and the general public interest, that we will have to put out a statement that you have come forward, and we consider that it would be better for you, as well as for the MoD, that we name you in the statement, and we are proposing to issue a statement in 24 hours' time. The point I am putting to you is, with hindsight, that that would have made it clear to him precisely when his name would become public and there would not have been the matter of him having to leave his home with Mrs Kelly in a rush, within about 10 minutes.

A. As I say, that would have been a possibility; but one of the reasons I felt that we did not get to that point was because there remained uncertainty as to whether Dr Kelly was Andrew Gilligan's source or not.

LORD HUTTON: Yes, I see. That has been mentioned by other witnesses. I appreciate that.

A. I think it was that uncertainty that sort of meant that a decision was not taken until sort of, you know, the Tuesday afternoon, really, to make a statement.

[22 September, page 1, line 1]

Q. Why did you consider, at that time, that it was right to publish that press statement?

A. Well, I had been concerned for some days by then that an official having come forward who had something relevant to say about the subject of two Parliamentary inquiries, at that stage we had still not identified that fact. I first became aware of it on the previous Thursday, but in fact Dr Kelly had first communicated his contact with Andrew Gilligan as long ago as Monday 30th June. Therefore, I was increasingly concerned about the amount of time that was passing without us acknowledging the fact that an official had come forward.

In addition, officials were due to give evidence the following day, the 9th, to the ISC; and therefore, again, there was some concern that if they had been asked questions about this matter they needed to be clear as to the position that the Government was taking. Above all else, because of both pressures, I was concerned that we should not be accused of covering up the fact that an official had come forward.

Q. With the benefit of hindsight, do you still consider that it was the right thing to do?

A. Yes, I do, because once an official had come forward, once he had made known the fact that he had had an unauthorised contact with Andrew Gilligan, then we had to deal with it. We did not have the option of doing nothing. We had to resolve this matter and use our best judgment to deal with the situation.

Q. The Inquiry has heard that in the early evening of 9th July the MoD press office confirmed to a journalist the identity of the person who had come forward, Dr Kelly. Were you aware, on 9th July, that the MoD press office was adopting an approach under which it was proposing to confirm the identity of the individual if the correct name was put?

A. Yes, I was. I had had a conversation earlier that day with Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary, in which he had set out to me the concerns that he had as far as the press office were concerned, in particular that individual press officers should not be seen to be lying to journalists, and that it was better that they should, if the right name was put to them, acknowledge the fact. He was also very concerned that there was a risk to other members of staff, other officials, and he did not want anything said by the press office to lead journalists in the direction of the wrong official.

Peter Sissons: The death was a great tragedy. Our thoughts of course are with his wife, with his family and with all his friends and colleagues at the MoD, and obviously in the wider scientific community, this is a very great personal tragedy. He killed himself after your department, indeed you personally outed him as the probable mole.

Geoff Hoon: I'm afraid that's simply not right, and as the evidence that the department will give to the inquiry will show, we followed very carefully established MoD procedures, and at all stages, certainly as far as I personally was concerned, we protected his anonymity.

Sissons: You're not saying you didn't name him in a letter to the Chairman of the BBC.

Hoon: I wrote a confidential letter to the Chairman of the BBC inviting the Chairman of the BBC to indicate whether Dr Kelly was or was not the primary source of Mr Andrew Gilligan's story. I think it's quite important to say at this stage that there will be, as the Prime Minister has indicated, a full inquiry. There will be an opportunity for everyone involved in this tragedy to set out the facts. I think it is important that we await the outcome of that enquiry before rushing to judgment.

Sissons: Whose idea was it to name him in the letter to the BBC which was subsequently leaked?

Hoon: As I say there was a careful procedure within the MoD, the procedures of the MoD were scrupulously followed. And it was, at an appropriate stage, judged that given the prospect of the name of Dr Kelly being revealed in any event, that it was better to invite the BBC to comment, rather than to allow there to be the kind of chase by the media that we've seen all too often in these kinds of circumstances. Again, these are matters for the inquiry.

Sissons: Why was his name then leaked?

Hoon: I'm not aware that his name was leaked. It was certainly not leaked by me, and I assure that we made great efforts to ensure Dr Kelly's anonymity.

Sissons: Were the finger prints of anyone in government on the leaking of his name?

Hoon: Not as far as I am aware. But again, these are obviously matters for Lord Hutton's inquiry.

Sissons: You also warned the Select Committee, did you not, in effect to be gentle with him.

Hoon: I was well aware that two committees had invited Dr Kelly to give evidence actually on the same day, although as I understand it subsequently he did not give evidence to both committees. But nevertheless at the time I was expecting that he would be required to give two sets of evidence to two different committees, and I certainly suggested by letter to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee that, as someone unused to the procedures of committees, that they should recognise that in the way in which they went about their questioning.

[22 September, page 23, line 23]

Q …. The first question I ask you about that is: what are these careful procedures of the MoD which were scrupulously followed?

A. Well, there were personnel procedures. As I indicated to the Inquiry before, it was my judgment that those were best left in the hands of those responsible, ultimately the Permanent Secretary. He delegated the responsibility of interviewing Dr Kelly to the personnel director, Richard Hatfield. I have read his evidence. It confirms it is consistent with what I was told at the time. He looked at this matter, first of all, on the basis of whether or not there was a disciplinary issue. Having decided that there was not, he then conducted a further interview with Dr Kelly. As I understand it, that is consistent with the Ministry of Defence personnel procedures.

Q. There are no procedures for naming civil servants, are there?

A. I did not name Dr Kelly other than in a private letter to -

Q. That is not the question I asked you, Mr Hoon. I am very sorry to interrupt you. There are no procedures for naming civil servants are there?

A. Well, I think that is not the fairest way of putting this issue. The issue is whether the procedures were followed. The procedures, as I have indicated, were followed. Since I did not name Dr Kelly other than in relation to the letter that I wrote privately to Gavyn Davies, I am not sure where your question takes us.

Q. Well, let us see. What I suggest to you is that there was a deliberate Government strategy to leak Dr Kelly's name into the public arena without appearing to do so, by a combination of the press statement, the question and answer material, the Prime Minister's official spokesman press briefing and other leaks which appear to have taken place to the press. That is what I suggest.

A. Well, you have put that point to a number of witnesses; they have all denied it; and I deny it.

Q. His name was leaked, was it not?

A. Not by me.

Q. No?

A. No.

Q. Because, let us just finish with this document on TVP/3 -

A. I apologise for interrupting you. But the suggestion you are making is there is some evidence that I leaked it. Perhaps you would indicate where it is so that I can comment on it.

Q. We will come to that in just a moment. What I am going to ask you next is this, Mr Hoon. You say about two-thirds of the way down that document: "I'm not aware that his name was leaked. It was certainly not leaked by me, and I assure ['you' it must be] that we made great efforts to ensure Dr Kelly's anonymity."

A. That is right, yes.

Q. What efforts did you make or did the MoD make to ensure Dr Kelly's anonymity?

A. Well, first of all, the knowledge of his name was limited to a very small number of people within the Ministry of Defence. I gave evidence on the last occasion that I was not told of his name until the Friday evening in a conversation with the Permanent Secretary. I did not tell my own special adviser until Wednesday 9th July. He learned about it from a news bulletin the previous evening. My principal private secretary did not tell other members of the office of what had occurred.

My office removed all identifying details from the copy of Dr Kelly's letter faxed to my constituency office on Friday 4th July because I did not have a secure line in my constituency office. Before we sent the private letter to Gavyn Davies we assured there was a fax line immediately available to him, again to ensure the letter did not fall into other hands. The press statement did not contain details about the name of Dr Kelly. Despite efforts by a number of journalists to require the press office to identify him by name, that was resisted. A whole series of steps were taken to protect Dr Kelly's anonymity.

[22 September, page 28, line 6]

Q. This was a press statement, was it not?

A. Yes, it was.

Q. So journalists were going to receive it, obviously. And they were going to follow the leads given in it, were they not?

A. I have no doubt that journalists throughout this period were trying to identify who was the source of Andrew Gilligan when he had his conversations, yes.

Q. In your desire to protect Dr Kelly's anonymity at all times, did you consider that the press statement might alert journalists?

A. I did not consider that it would alert journalists in the sense you are suggesting. It certainly inevitably meant that their interest in this matter would be heightened, yes.

Q. I mean, for example, we have evidence from Mr Norton-Taylor of the Guardian. He said that it whetted his appetite, which I have no doubt is substantial. Did that occur to you?

A. I have just answered your question. I recognise that the issuing of a statement was likely to lead to journalists wanting even more than they had previously to identify Andrew Gilligan's source. But there is clear evidence that journalists were already looking for Andrew Gilligan's source. I accept that this was bound to increase their enthusiasm for making that identification.

[22 September, page 30, line 1]

Q. Yes. I am putting to you a rather wider point at the moment, that the Government as a whole had decided on a strategy which would lead Dr Kelly's name into the public arena, with a view to him giving evidence before the FAC. Now, is that a strategy that you recognise or not?

A. No, it is not; and indeed I do not believe that there is the slightest shred of evidence for that assertion.

[22 September, page 33, line 13]

A. I am somewhat puzzled as to why I am being asked questions about what someone else said in relation to a briefing I had no part in and which I could not reasonably have anticipated was going to be given in this way.

MR GOMPERTZ: For the reason I have already put to you, that this was not just a strategy devised by the MoD, was it? This was a Government strategy.

LORD HUTTON: Is your evidence, Secretary of State, that whatever may have been the strategy in the minds of other people, you were not aware of this strategy and you were not aware that this information would be given out at the Lobby briefing? Is that what you are saying?

A. That is exactly my position, my Lord.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. Learned counsel is suggesting there was some sort of a conspiracy right across Government for all these people to be involved in giving out small parts of information which he has concluded provided a picture. But there is just no evidence of that, my Lord. Certainly as far as I am concerned there was no such conspiracy.

LORD HUTTON: I think Mr Gompertz is putting to you that there was a conspiracy on the part of the Government as a whole. You have said, as far as you were concerned, you were not aware of that.

A. Yes.

LORD HUTTON: Do you want to add anything further on that point that Mr Gompertz has put to you?

A. Not only was I not aware of it, I would be extremely surprised, not only in the light of the evidence which your Lordship has heard but also what I knew of what was going on elsewhere in Government, if that is a possible argument that any reasonable person could make.

MR GOMPERTZ: Well, thank you for that, Mr Hoon. Are you suggesting that No.10 is in the habit of issuing press briefings concerning a particular Department, in this case your Department, without any consultation whatsoever?

A. That is a very difficult question to answer precisely. I am sure that as and when issues arise - bear in mind that journalists who attend these Lobby briefings are trying to catch out the briefers on a range of issues and will ask all sorts of questions, some of which may be anticipated given the news of the day, some of which may not. So I think strictly the answer to your question is that by and large it would not always be possible for, on every occasion, the briefers to consult with the Department. They would simply have no notice of the questions that were coming up.

Q. In this particular instance this was the story of the moment, was it not?

A. Yes, it was.

Q. Yes. So are you saying that what Mr Tom Kelly said on this occasion was without your knowledge in any shape or form?

A. It was without my knowledge in any shape or form, yes.

[22 September, page 41, line 17]

A. But I think, Mr Gompertz, if I may explain: you are not properly understanding the way in which a Q and A document works. A Q and A document is prepared for the use of press officers. It is not something that comes to my office. It is based on decisions that are taken by the Department as a whole as a guidance for press officers when they are answering questions put to them by journalists. If I may give you an example: at around this time we were taking a decision on which particular training aircraft should be purchased for the Royal Air Force. Eventually a decision was taken on which aircraft we would choose. That would have been, I am sure - I have never seen it, but I am sure that would have been incorporated into a question and answer document, but I would not have needed to see the answer to the question which I am sure was likely to be the first question: which training aircraft has the Ministry of Defence decided to purchase? It would have then given the answer. But I would not have needed to see that because in fact it was simply reflecting decisions previously taken by the Ministry of Defence, in exactly the same way that I take it that this question and answer document was reflecting the views taken in the Department.

MR GOMPERTZ: Can I ask you now, then, to look at another passage in your evidence on the previous occasion? Page 69, line 17 is the question. Do you have that?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. I do not think I need read the question, in fact. But at line 22 you say this: "I did not see this Q and A and played no part in its preparation, so it is a little difficult for me to comment about any underlying purpose". Is that an answer you stand by?

A. Well, the Q and A had been prepared the night before.

Q. Yes. So do you stand -

A. Therefore I played no part in its preparation.

Q. Even though there was discussion about it the following morning in your office?

A. I was asked by the Permanent Secretary whether I confirmed the document that had been prepared the night before, as far as one small aspect of it was concerned, which was the decision to confirm Dr Kelly's name if a journalist got it right, and I agreed to that. But that was the only issue that was raised with me by either the Permanent Secretary or indeed the subsequent press briefing meeting.

Q. So apart from those matters, you had no knowledge of the Q and A material being prepared in your Department at all?

A. Not until I saw the Q and A document much later, no.

Q. Did it occur to you that the material contained in the Q and A document might lead to the identification of Dr Kelly if the right questions were asked by journalists?

A. Well, with the benefit of hindsight I can see that the answers to some of those questions might have assisted journalists in that process, yes.

Q. But you did not, at the time, think to look through the document in its entirety in order to continue your avowed intention of protecting Dr Kelly's identity at all times?

A. Well, I have made clear on more than one occasion that this is a routine process entered into for the benefit of press officers answering questions put to them by journalists. It has never been my practice to go through the Q and As which I am sure are routinely prepared in relation to a whole range of subjects in the Ministry of Defence.

[22 September, page 45, line 4]

Q. Somehow Mr Campbell came to write in his diary the two words "plea bargain".

A. Hmm.

Q. How did that come about?

A. Well, I cannot strictly answer that question but, as I indicated on the last occasion, we had a conversation about the process that I think I have already described to the Inquiry today; a process whereby initially there was a consideration of whether or not there were any disciplinary questions that Dr Kelly might face, followed by a recognition that having come forward voluntarily, apparently cooperating, that the matter could be dealt with in a different light. And I believe what I told the Inquiry on the last occasion, and I stand by, is that that description might have led Mr Campbell to see this in terms of, journalistic shorthand, a plea bargain.

Q. What Mr Campbell wrote in his diary, as I understand it, is this: "GH said his initial instinct was to throw the book at him but in fact there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain." Do you recognise that statement?

A. Well, I have seen those words.

Q. Well, do you recognise those words as words spoken by you during this telephone conversation?

A. No, I do not. I indicated to the Inquiry on the last occasion that I recognised them as journalistic shorthand for rather a long explanation that I had given to Alastair about what had, by then, taken place.

Q. You know perfectly well the meaning of the expression "plea bargain", do you not? Lord Hutton took you through it last time, did he not?

A. He did.

Q. And you know it anyway having practised at the bar yourself.

A. I am well aware of it.

Q. Yes. How could that expression, on your account of matters, have any relevance to what you were discussing with Mr Campbell?

A. As I indicated on the last occasion, Dr Kelly was coming forward, he volunteered, he appeared to be cooperating. That - perhaps you would be best putting these matters to Mr Campbell, but that is an aspect, at any rate, of what happens when there is a plea bargain, someone cooperates with the authorities.

Q. What you are talking about, someone coming forward, cooperating and so on, that is mitigation, is it not? There is no element of a bargain there.

A. No, there is not; and I was at great pains to emphasise that there was no bargain; and indeed when you put that I think to Mr Hatfield, he said there was no bargain. Nothing followed from this conversation at all. There is no evidence at all anywhere that anyone entered into any kind of a bargain with Dr Kelly.

Q. The fact that he had come forward and said voluntarily what he had in his letter and then in the interview of 4th July, those were matters in the past, were they not, when you were speaking to Mr Campbell?

A. Well, to the best of my recollection, on the Saturday morning I was describing to him - I was relaying to him second-hand conversations because I was describing to him what I had been told by the Permanent Secretary.

Q. How could there be, I quote, "a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain" in the future?

A. Sorry, I do not follow that.

Q. How could it be that you were saying that there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain?

A. I was not.

Q. Did you say anything that might have led Mr Campbell to write down words of that kind?

A. Well, I think I have explained my understanding of this exchange. I took Alastair Campbell through what had occurred up until then. I explained that Dr Kelly - I am not even sure, to be quite - I am pretty confident I did not actually say it was Dr Kelly, I said "the official" or something of the kind. I have indicated previously, as far as I am concerned that that was his summary of the past. I do not understand that this was anything that was to be acted on for the future. Indeed, there is no evidence that anyone so acted.

Q. Did you think that Dr Kelly ought to give evidence in front of the FAC?

A. When I received a request from the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I eventually concluded, with the benefit of the advice that I had received, that, yes, he should give evidence once his name was in the public domain, yes.

Q. And if he gave evidence in front of the FAC contrary to the account which Mr Gilligan had given, that would assist the Government, would it not?

A. I think it would assist everyone. I think it would have assisted-

Q. Never mind everyone, what about the Government?

A. I am including the Government in "everyone".

Q. Right.

A. The Government would have benefited; the BBC would have benefited; and I think, most importantly, the public would have benefited. And the point that I made right at the outset of my original evidence was that the difficulty with Andrew Gilligan's story was that we were not in a position to assess the nature, quality, status of his source. So that ultimately it was of benefit to everyone that he should give evidence once he had been identified.

Q. Was this a benefit which you were referring to in your conversation with Mr Campbell, when you said there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargain?

A. Perhaps I need to look at his diary in order to be sure about what you are saying. I have summarised, I think on more than one occasion, and I do not wish to try your patience by repeating it, but these were Alastair Campbell's words, they were not my words; and the best I can do is to say that they were a summary of the description of the process that by then I was aware had taken place.

Q. Because, of course, Dr Kelly did give evidence before both Committees.

A. Eventually, yes.

Q. With your encouragement?

A. With my agreement.

[22 September, page 101, line 20]

Q. Did you not, when that discussion was taking place, ask whether or not Dr Kelly was happy with this proposed approach of the Ministry of Defence confirming his name?

A. I did not. But -

Q. Why not?

A. Well, because I believed that proper steps had been taken to apprise Dr Kelly of the consequences of, particularly, the press statement being issued on the Tuesday; and indeed felt that that was more than sufficient to make him aware of what was possibly going to follow.

Q. Do you think there is a difference between yourself being confirmed by an employer and other people working it out?

A. There is clearly a difference; but the assumption throughout, which Dr Kelly had accepted, was that at some stage his name would come out; and of course it did come out, and it came out as a result of various investigations by journalists who then put the name to the MoD press office.

Q. Did you not think that he ought to have been told about the Q and A material being deployed which would have given details in addition to that contained in the press statement?

A. Again, I think that is to misunderstand the nature of the Q and A. It was not deployed in the sense that your question implies. It was simply background advice for press officers to deal with anticipated questions being put by journalists.

Q. Mr Campbell said in his evidence, in hindsight - he used those words "in hindsight" - that it was wrong to have the name dribble out in this way. Do you agree with that?

A. No, I do not. I regret that perhaps Dr Kelly's name was bandied about amongst journalists in the way that it was, but I do not believe, given the way in which journalists operate, that there was much alternative. I do not see how it could have been the case that journalists determined to identify Dr Kelly could have been prevented from doing so.

Q. Why was he not named with his consent, after his consent had been obtained, in a press statement, if it was inevitably going to come out?

A. First of all, his consent had not been sought. And we do not know whether he would have consented to that process.

Secondly, we were still, at that stage, as I have said repeatedly, unsure as to whether Dr Kelly was or was not Andrew Gilligan's single source.

Q. But -

A. Therefore, it did not seem to me necessarily appropriate, at that point, to volunteer his name.

Q. But if the question and answer material is being drafted on the basis it is inevitable his name is going to come out, if the decision has been taken to confirm his name if given because it is inevitable his name will come out, why not actually tell him his name is going to come out, put it in a press statement and give him the express opportunity to consent? Because we have heard that Dr Kelly perceived, rightly or wrongly, he had been let down by his employers. That would have at least met that particular complaint.

A. Well, it would have met that particular complaint. Then perhaps if that course had been followed you would be putting to me a different complaint, which is that, for example, Dr Kelly was not given sufficient time to prepare himself; that he was not given sufficient opportunity to consider what course of action he should take. The approach that was taken, particularly on the evening of 8th July, to warn him that the press statement was being made, to give him the opportunity of going through all the details in the press statement and then to apprise him of the likely press interest following the issue of the press statement, at least gave him some time to think about what action he should take in order to protect himself against the enthusiasm of the press for seeing out his identity.

[22 September, page 130, line 21]

Q. Can I ask you about another point please? Evidence has been given on the evening of 7th July 2003 you had a discussion with Godric Smith in which you suggested that Dr Kelly's name should be given out to an evening paper. Can you tell us, please, exactly what your suggestion was, why it was made and what became of it?

A. No, it was not a discussion with Godric Smith, it was a discussion with the Defence Secretary, part of which Godric Smith heard on my speaker phone in the office, and I was not suggesting to Godric or to Mr Hoon or to anybody else that the name of the person who had come forward be put into the public domain. I was suggesting in advance of the Prime Minister's Liaison Committee appearance that the fact of somebody coming forward should be put into the public domain. And there was a very - I hesitate even to call it a proposal, it was a thought which was very quickly rejected by the Defence Secretary, Godric and Tom Kelly both thought it was a bad idea. But more importantly I raised it with the Prime Minister, he thought it was a bad idea and nothing came of it.

Q. During the period between your having this thought and it being sat on by all those people, did you have a view about how the name would be conveyed to the press?

A. No, I was not suggesting the name be conveyed.

Q. Sorry, the fact that somebody had come forward.

A. What my thought was based on was the idea of whether this should happen, not how. Had the decision been taken that it should have been taken forward, then we would have had a discussion about how to do that, but I was not envisaging doing it in anything other than an open way, making clear that this was information that would come from the Government.

Q. Mr Dingemans put to Mr Hoon that no doubt the suggestion was that it should be done anonymously. When Mr Dingemans puts that question to you, what will your answer be?

A. If he does put that question to me in those terms, that was not what I had in mind.

Q. What did you have in mind, if anything?

A. Well, what I had in mind at that point was - I mean bear in mind on 7th July I had been busy all day with if you like helping to organise the Government's response to the Foreign Affairs Committee report. Come the late afternoon, early evening, I am starting to turn my mind to the Prime Minister's forthcoming appearance at the Liaison Committee and what I had in mind was something, a plan, that allowed the Prime Minister when he appeared at the Liaison Committee to be able to avoid what I think could have been a very difficult situation had he been asked about this, the question whether we knew anything about the source.

What I had in mind was a chain of events which ended if you like with the Prime Minister being able to say: I am aware of these reports, I am aware somebody has come forward, it is being handled by the Ministry of Defence. My worry was if there was nothing in the public domain at that time, either he would be put in a position where he could leave himself open to the charge of being misleading, in other words if he said nothing when he did know something that would be difficult or he would be put in a position where he, the Prime Minister, would be launching if you like yet another fire storm around this issue.

[22 September, page 196, line 7]

LORD HUTTON: Can we just look at the slightly earlier part of that entry. I understood from your evidence on the first occasion, I think, that it is your recollection that the Secretary of State used the words "some kind of plea bargain"?

A. I do not know that he used those exact words. I used those words to convey there the sense of what I felt he was saying to me, which was that this person had come forward, the person had acknowledged that he had done something wrong in having the unauthorised contact with Mr Gilligan. What I felt Mr Hoon was saying was that the person was saying: yes, I did some of these things. I did not do these, and I hope that by being honest and straightforward in coming forward to you that will be taken into account in any disciplinary action that might follow. And that was my assessment of what Mr Hoon was saying to me.

LORD HUTTON: Well, then you, yourself, would sometimes use the word or the term a "plea bargain"?

A. No, I would not normally, no but I -

LORD HUTTON: Are you saying it is a term that is familiar to you?

A. It is not a term that I would normally use. It may be that the Secretary of State used that. It is certainly my sense of what he said. But I cannot vouch 100 per cent for the Secretary of State using those exact words.

9 July 2003

BBC story moving away because they were refusing to take on the source idea. There was a big conspiracy at work really. We kept pressing on as best we could at the briefings, but the biggest thing needed was the source out. We agreed that we should not do it ourselves, so didn't but later in the day the FT, Guardian after a while Evans [Defence Correspondent of the Times] got the name.

15 July 2003

Looking forward to Kelly giving evidence, but GS, CR and I all predicted it would be a disaster and so it proved. Despite MOD assurances he was well schooled …

[22 September, page 221, line 8]

Q. Mr Kelly we know in the afternoon of 9th July gives out some further information which helped Mr Blitz along the path to the identification of Dr Kelly: "We kept pressing on as best we could at the briefings." Is that a reference to any discussions you had had with Mr Kelly?

A. No, that I think is the point that I am making. We keep having to make the point to the press that in our view, if this is the source then the story is wrong and the BBC should acknowledge that. And that is the point that we are making; and I think that the - I know that Tom Kelly is before the Inquiry tomorrow so he will have to answer the questions that you put then. But the points that he made at that briefing were in response to a BBC response to the MoD statement that was seeking to put over the point that this could not possibly be the source and that is why he had to make the points that he did.

Q. In which case the BBC are saying it is not him. You think it is him because that is what Mr Howard thinks, and the biggest thing needed was a source out. Now I imagine that is the name of the source, is that right?

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. So in Government circles it was recognised that it would assist them to have Dr Kelly's name out; is that fair?

A. That was my view. There were - although again qualified by the observation that I made earlier, qualified further, I think you raised other parts of my diaries when I first gave evidence, it was never going to be unalloyed but I think the -

Q. I am going to take you to a bit which balances that.

A. But this had become the nub of the issue. That was not Dr Kelly's fault. He did not know that was going to happen when he met Mr Gilligan but that was the reality of the situation that now pertained.

LORD HUTTON: I know you have gone over it before but you say qualified the view expressed. Just remind me very briefly what you are referring to there.

A. That it was not clear that it was necessarily going to be unalloyed good news for Dr Kelly to appear in public because he may well have things to say that would not necessarily accord with Government policy.

LORD HUTTON: I see, thank you.

MR DINGEMANS: Of course if you prevent, not you personally, but if Government prevents him giving that evidence, keeps the Foreign Affairs Committee off it, it is all good news from the Government's point of view.

A. Well, you have probably, no doubt, read some of the transcripts and you may have seen some of the video coverage of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I do not believe the Foreign Affairs Committee would have held back from asking whatever questions they wanted.

Q. The biggest thing needed was the source out. You say that was your view. Do you know if anyone else had that view?

A. I think by now - I mean, I think the mood around No.10 and I suspect much of the rest of the Government by now is that this whole issue is taking up a huge amount of time and energy; the BBC clearly were not going to accept they were wrong. They were not investigating, in my view, the complaint. It was frankly just going nowhere.

Q. Without his name out?

A. No, just generally. And I think that what had happened is that the statement had gone out, everybody felt it was inevitable at some point he was going to be identified. It was probably certain that the FAC and the ISC would want to see him. That was where this was heading. But I think by now, frankly, everybody is thinking this whole thing is just - I do not think - I think everybody felt pretty dispirited by the whole thing.

Q. Did you agree or discuss with Ms Teare the proposition that the Ministry of Defence would confirm Dr Kelly's name if the correct name was given?

A. I was aware that that was the policy that they had agreed.

Q. Who told you that?

A. (Pause): I think I learnt it from Pam or from Kate Wilson at one of the morning meetings, that that was the approach they were taking.

Q. Do you know which morning meeting?

A. I do not know.

Q. What was your reaction: good, that is what I want, because I think you have said quite frankly you wanted his name out?

A. As I said when I first gave evidence, I had been asked by the Prime Minister to take pretty much of a back seat on all of this. I can see why that plan was put together. It is, as I explained earlier when I gave evidence before, the reality of a lot of press office work; but I think it would have been better if there had been greater clarity and control in the process. I think it is always a mistake to cede control on these issues to the press.

Q. You have seen the Q and A material now. You have heard that Dr Kelly was not told about that. As a press man yourself, what are your views on that? Do you think Dr Kelly ought to have been told about the proposal to confirm his name?

A. I thought he had been told, that - I thought he understood, certainly I understood that he understood that that was going to happen.

Q. That the Ministry of Defence would confirm his name?

A. That if it was put to them by the press.

Q. Who had told you that? I appreciate that you say was your understanding. Who had given you that understanding?

A. Again, specifically I think it was - it was within the context of those meetings then. I cannot specifically recall that.

Q. Because assume, just for the purposes of the argument, that he had not been told.

A. Had not?

Q. Had not. That would have been quite wrong, would it not?

A. Well, just to go back to the point I made earlier.

Q. Not going back to points.

A. Well, it is actually to answer the question. I think that in a situation like this, where you have a person there who whilst experienced with the press on one level has not necessarily experienced what it is like dealing when you personally are the centre of this sort of thing, then I think it is best that you are brought in and are part of an agreed plan and an agreed strategy which you then implement together.

Q. Indeed. And if you are not and you are told only about the press statement but not about the lines or the Q and A material or about the fact that your boss may confirm the name if the correct name is given to you, it is always likely to lead to problems, is it not?

A. Again, I can see why in the circumstances that existed at the time the plan that was put together was put together. As I said both times I have appeared now, I always think it is better in these difficult situations, you have a plan, you involve everybody in that, everyone knows what is going on. But, again the - I mean I read Kate Wilson's evidence for example. I never spoke to Dr Kelly. I do not know how he was reacting. I mean, I got the sense from the way she was describing those conversations that maybe he did not want the help that was being offered. I just do not know. But I do not think it is really fair for me to deliver judgment in the way that you are asking me to.

Q. "We agreed that we should not do it ourselves, so didn't but later in the day the FT, Guardian [and] after a while Evans [Defence Correspondent of the Times] got the name."

A. Hmm.

Q. After Mr Blitz from the Financial Times got the name, he was rang up by someone who gave him further information; he spoke with Miss Teare. Do you know anything about that?

A. I do not know.

Q. I imagine you would deprecate all this briefing off the record after the event beyond the Q and A and the press statement, is that right?

A. Well, there would not be any need for it. The statement had gone out. I have said, you know, what I think about the fact that this came out as it were in an uncontrolled way. Beyond that, there is no real purpose served. As I say, again, just to put the other side of this, there was a - this was a - the media were banging the phones of everybody the whole time, but I am not aware of what you are referring to in relation to what Mr Blitz was told after the name.

Q. Mr Blitz was given further information about the status of the individual providing further information, which was supporting the Government line that Dr Kelly could not have known what was said to have been said -

A. I see. I am not aware of that.

Q. And I have already asked you about the articles that Mr Baldwin wrote.

A. Yes.

Q. Did you have any knowledge of any information given to Mr Baldwin at this time about Dr Kelly's status or anything?

A. No.

Q. 15th July, finally: "Looking forward to Kelly giving evidence, but GS, CR and I all predicted it would be a disaster and so it proved." I think that was the point about it not always being good news.

A. I think it goes back to the point I made about 9th July. I mean, through this whole episode, really, what has been so - it has obviously been terrible and far worse for Dr Kelly and his family than for anybody else but what has been terrible from our perspective is that at every stage of this we have felt as it were to be the wronged party and yet nothing has really ever gone according to the outcome that we might have wished, and frankly I think it just reflected in the mood that then existed in Downing Street that this was something which we were going to have to sort of put behind us and forget.

Q. "Despite MoD assurance he was well schooled …" Who gave you those assurances?

A. Again I think that was a - myself and Jonathan Powell just wanted to be assured by the MoD that Dr Kelly was being prepared, as an FAC appearance does require a lot of preparation. I think it was Kate Wilson, at a morning meeting.

Q. I am sorry, I did say "finally" before. Going back to the 9th July, one question I forgot to ask. The last sentence : "We agreed that we should not do it ourselves …" Who is "we"?

A. No. 10, No.10.

Q. So that is No.10 - there are a lot of people in No.10.

A. That will be a reference - the discussions I have about these sorts of issues would be myself, Tom Kelly and Godric Smith.

Q. The Prime Minister?

A. The Prime Minister would not - I mean, I am not suggesting there that anybody is saying that we should be doing it ourselves. I am just making the point - the Prime Minister was clear we should be saying nothing about this at all and beyond the strategic points that I had been making earlier, namely if this is the person then the BBC story is wrong and the BBC should be big enough to accept that.

[23 September, page 3, line 19]

Q. When you began to prepare for the Lobby briefings on 9th July, what were the matters that you expected to be asked about?

A. Well, obviously, the MoD statement which had been issued on the evening beforehand was going to be the major subject; but that was very much going to be conditioned by the BBC statement which had been issued just an hour afterwards, which had called into question two of the central elements of the MoD statement.

Q. What elements had that statement called into question?

A. Well, what they had called into question was the fact that Mr Gilligan, the MoD had said, had known or the official who had come forward had known Mr Gilligan for a matter of months; the BBC said it had been longer than that, it had been for years; and also the BBC stated that the official - Mr Gilligan's source - did not work for the MoD.

Q. What issues did those two statements give rise to that you thought were liable to provoke questions?

A. Well, clearly that the underlying theme was that the MoD statement lacked credibility, because if it was wrong about where the person worked, if it was wrong about how long the source had known Mr Gilligan, then the whole credibility of the MoD statement was at risk. If the whole credibility of the MoD statement was at risk then the idea that this official might be Mr Gilligan's source was completely at stake.

Q. What information did you seek in order to deal with the questions that you anticipated on that point?

A. I sought - at the 8.30 morning media meeting in No.10, I identified these two issues as two issues which I was going to have to address and I sought clarification of what the answers to those issues were from the FCO and the MoD; and I made it clear that, obviously, the answers I would have to give at 11 o'clock.

[23 September, page 5, line 19]

Q. What were your objectives in dealing with possible questions from Lobby journalists? Did you go into the Lobby briefings intending to make it easier to identify Dr Kelly?

A. Well, I have to stress that at no point did I try to give information or drop clues which I thought would lead to Dr Kelly's identification. There was no -

Q. If I can just stop you there, I am going to take you to the actual briefings in a moment. At the moment I would just like to be clear about the intentions that you had in mind when you went into that briefing before you said anything.

A. Well, the BBC statement had created considerable difficulty for me and I was under no illusion about the difficulties I faced. I had to balance what I thought were a number of competing pressures. I genuinely wanted to try to protect Dr Kelly's identity as much as possible but I had to explain the discrepancies between the BBC statement and the MoD statement; and I had to do so without misleading the Lobby, which is the golden rule for Prime Minister's Official Spokesman, you cannot mislead the Lobby. One other factor was that I did not want to implicate anybody else as being the possible source because that would put suspicion on other people as well.

[23 September, page 7, line 9]

Q. How much information did you give out in the morning briefing which was not already in the public domain?

A. Well, my intention was to give information but to do so in as limited a way as possible to address the discrepancies between the MoD statement and the BBC statement. So, I identified that I thought the important information was partly what this person was not. So I stressed that the source was not a member of the Intelligence Service, that the person was not a member of the military intelligence; and also I put the importance of that because the BBC had placed so much onus on that.

What I did try to explain was the discrepancy over which Department the person worked for, by explaining that he worked for the MoD but his salary was paid for by another Department, but despite repeated questioning I did not say which Department that was; and I also explained the discrepancy over how long Dr Kelly had known Mr Gilligan by saying that the person concerned had known Andrew Gilligan in a number of different guises, in a number of different ways over the years. I deliberately chose that euphemism to try to give as little information away as possible, whereas what I actually knew was that Mr Gilligan and Dr Kelly had come across each other in press briefings over the years. I thought that was too specific, so I chose the phrase "different guises".

Q. Yes. You have the morning briefing notes open. If there is anything you particularly wish to draw our attention to to fill out that summary, this is your or an opportunity to do so.

A. The one point I would like to underline is - well, there are two points really. Firstly, the impact of the BBC statement is obvious from the second paragraph of the summary, in which I am asked three times in the one paragraph how the source that we have identified, the person who had come forward, could possibly be Mr Gilligan's source, given what the BBC have said in response. So the effect of the BBC statement had been to seriously call into question the MoD's statement. That I had to deal with.

Secondly, the other issue, if I may deal with it, is in the middle of the first paragraph where I say that I address the question of the position of the source. As long ago as 4th June, a few days after we had returned from Iraq, I had identified the position of the source as being a key issue. I did so because my understanding was that only a member of the JIC had the full intelligence picture on which to make the kind of claim that the Today Programme had done. That is why I thought it was important to stress that the official who turned out to be Dr Kelly could not have been in a position to make that claim.

[23 September, page 9, line 12]

Q. I want to turn to the afternoon briefing. That starts at CAB/1/511. I do not want to take you through the whole of these rather long notes but if you look at the bottom of 511 and over to the middle of 512, and at pages 513 and the top of page 514, and then at the last paragraph to begin on page 514, you will find that you gave out more information in the afternoon briefing than you had done in the morning.

A. Again, I think what was important was that I knew I was going to come under persistent questioning, and indeed I did so. In the morning briefing and in the afternoon briefing I deliberately drew a line forward, a defensive line, if you like, forward of my actual state of knowledge and, therefore, what I tried to do was give away as little information as possible. Hence my description of Dr Kelly as a technical expert, because I thought if I described him as a WMD expert I would get persistent questioning on what kind of WMD expert, where he was, et cetera. Again, in the afternoon, I got persistent questioning on why we would not say what Department paid his salary and hence I tried to give away as little information as possible. But inevitably I did give away some information but I do not believe that that actually helped any of the journalists identify Dr Kelly.

Q. Can you summarise the additional information that you gave out in the afternoon briefing which you had not given out in the morning and which was not in the public domain?

A. The information I think I gave out in the afternoon briefing was the reason why I refused to say which Department paid for his salary, which was that there were only a few people who were paid in this way and therefore that is why I could not give it out because they would be able to identify Dr Kelly. I felt I had to do that because otherwise the Lobby would think that there was something underhand about us refusing to say. I had to give them an explanation. There are times in the Lobby when assertion is not enough. It was also put to me that was this person a secondee. If I had refused to address that issue the assumption would be - because people were putting to me that this person worked for the FCO or was paid for by the FCO, the assumption would be that he was a diplomat. I could not let that assumption rest because the FCO had made it very plain to me in the morning that they did not want people to assume he was a diplomat because they thought suspicion would fall on other people. So I had to describe him as a consultant. I thought consultant was a very vague term and I did not think it would help people identify Dr Kelly.

[23 September, page 12, line 13]

MR SUMPTION: The suggestion has been made that Dr Kelly was some kind of pawn in a game that you were playing with the press. What do you say about that?

A. Absolutely not. There were lots of pressures on everybody at this time, but I genuinely feel that I and I do not believe others that I worked with lost sight of that there was an individual caught up in this controversy, in the middle of it, and that therefore we had to respect that individual. At the same time, there was a logic of events which stretched back to 29th May which unfortunately, and I did not like that logic, but there was a logic which was working its way through. Now, there were times whenever if the BBC had stepped back, I think that logic could have been stopped, but as the effect of the BBC statement on what I had to do on the 9th [July] showed, it was very difficult to get out of the pressure of those events.

Q. Finally, Mr Kelly, if I can turn to one matter arising after Dr Kelly's death. You have already made your position clear, very publicly, on the Walter Mitty remarks and you have apologised without reservation for that. What I want to ask you is this: it has been suggested that what you said on that occasion about Dr Kelly was part of a broader plan on the part of the Government or yourself to belittle him, so that his disclosures to Andrew Gilligan would seem less significant. Do you have any comment to make about that?

A. Well, I was not aware of or part of any strategy to demean or belittle Dr Kelly. I have accepted that my remark was wrong, it was a mistake, it was a too colourful phrase to use, but it was a mistake in what I thought was a private conversation. It was not part of any broad strategy and I would not have been part of any broad strategy.

[23 September, page 20, line 8]

Q. Can I put this suggestion to you: that if one combines what you said, I realise chronologically not in the right order, but what you said in the Lobby briefing with what was in the MoD statement, there was a great deal of information, I suggest, which would enable a journalist who knew about such matters to identify the person concerned very quickly?

A. Well, I think the problem is that we are talking about two separate events. I had to respond to the questions which journalists were asking as a result of the BBC statement. If the BBC had not put out their statement, I would not have had to respond to the questions. If I had not responded to the questions, then the impact of the BBC statement, as the seven questions I got during the morning and the afternoon made clear, would have been to totally discredit the MoD statement.

Q. So the problems were all of the BBC's making, were they?

A. I am simply explaining the context in which I had to operate on the morning and the afternoon of the 9th June. As I have already said, I was under no illusion as to the difficulty I had in balancing the competing pressures that faced me that day. Those difficulties were real and I was fully aware of them.

[23 September, page 26, line 25]

Q. Because the whole purpose of the statement, the Lobby briefings and the Q and A material is demonstrated in these notes, is it not, Mr Kelly? Namely, that there was a strategy to reveal Dr Kelly's name without appearing to do so?

A. Categorically not.

[23 September, page 35, line 16]

Q. But can I just say this: that the suggestion is that this was not just a single off the cuff remark to Mr Waugh, it was a scene setting remark, was it not, made to several journalists?

A. It was not intended as that. I said at the end of the Lobby briefing on the afternoon of 9th [July] that I did not intend to demean or understate the role of the official who came forward. That was my view all the way through. What I, however, did think was legitimate was the issue of whether the source of Andrew Gilligan's story had been in the position to make the claim that Andrew Gilligan reported that person as having made, whether he did or did not. And that, I believe, was always a legitimate issue and I had expressed that view from 4th June right up to 7th July, and on seven different occasions during Lobby, because I thought that was a legitimate issue. It was that I was trying to examine in my conversations with journalists, without demeaning Dr Kelly in any way.

[23 September, page 40, line 21]

Q. So there was no Government campaign to belittle, demean or slur him?

A. I was not aware of any explicit or implicit strategy to do so and I was not part of any strategy to do so.

[23 September, page 48, line 9]

MR DINGEMANS: So once the statement had been issued, everyone knew that his name was going to come out from the professional press department side of things?

A. Well, that was my professional opinion and I believe that Dr Kelly had accepted the inevitability of that.

Q. We have heard evidence on that. Can I just press you, though, for an answer to my question, which was whether you wanted, on 9th July, the source out; and you have given us a long answer but I rather think it permits of a yes or no.

A. The short answer is: no.

Q. You did not want the source out?

A. I did not want any of this to be happening. I wanted to try and resolve this as a private matter; but I had to do my job and my job was to do the Lobby that day and address the discrepancies.

Q. So Mr Campbell got it wrong when he said: " … the biggest thing needed was the source out. We agreed we should not do it ourselves", and you were keeping going at the press briefings?

A. What I did not want to do was to say anything at Lobby which helped identify David Kelly; but what I did have to do was address the questions which the BBC statement made inevitable that I was going to have to address.

Kelly's readiness to be associated with a public statement that names him and carries a clear and sustainable refutation of the core allegation on the '45 minute' intelligence.

[13 October, page 7, line 12]

Q … … Why did you give that instruction to ascertain Dr Kelly's readiness to be associated with a public statement that names him?

A. Well, there are a number of points here. Firstly, I felt from the outset that an allegation made based on a single anonymous source could only be countered credibly and authoritatively and finally if that single anonymous source is identified and clarifies the issue personally. It so happened that Dr Kelly came forward and seemed very likely to be that source. There have, I know, been explanations or arguments advanced as to other ways of correcting or clarifying the public record. None of them could have been as complete as this method.

The second reason is that I felt that once we were satisfied or could be satisfied this was indeed the explanation for Gilligan's story, there would be no reason whatsoever for Dr Kelly to feel that this was an undue piece of pressure placed on him. We expected this to come out at any moment. I expected to see in the press, you know, "Kelly responsible for [this allegation]". Had Dr Kelly really been responsible for saying the things that were in that article, had he really said that Alastair Campbell and the Government had intervened in the intelligence judgments overturning the advice of the intelligence community, using information which they knew indeed to be untrue or no longer valid, then that would have been a very, very grave charge indeed. Had he actually said that, Dr Kelly would have been guilty of a very serious disciplinary offence. So I believe that he himself would have an interest in correcting the record and thereby removing this slur on him, as a respected technical source but not somebody who got caught up in making such politically damaging allegations. So I thought this was again a perfectly reasonable thing to be putting to Dr Kelly, as well as a necessary thing in terms of clarifying and clearing up the record. When I say "clarifying and clearing up the record", right at the beginning when I spoke to Geoff Hoon about this, he put it to me, and I agreed, that it is very difficult for good Government to proceed on the basis of judgments made in the public mind as a result of allegations in the press and repeated in Parliament, judgments based on anonymous sources. Good Government can only proceed if the evidence is made available and the people, through Parliament and through the press, are able to actually judge for themselves. That is what I meant about clearing up the record.

Q. We know that -

A. I am sorry, I have probably said too much.

Q. Sorry, had you completed your answer?

A. The final point is that I had no particular view as to precisely when Mr Hatfield would actually put this point to Dr Kelly. I had assumed he would do it more or less straightaway. But it did need to be read in conjunction with the other point, that until we were satisfied or reasonably satisfied that it was Dr Kelly, clearly I understood that it would be very hard to expect him to put his name to this and wrong of us to do so.

[13 October, page 13, line 5]

Q. In the conversation which you had with Mr Powell that evening was anything said about the amount of detail which might be required in such a statement?

A. Yes, Jonathan Powell took the view that if we made a statement, we would need to be able to stand it up fully in public to explain why it was we were bringing forward this information and that we would need to explain that the status of the individual was such as to render it highly improbable that he could authoritatively have made the allegations that were central to Gilligan's broadcast, as well as the denial that he actually made those statements.

Q. As matters stood at close of play on Monday 7th July, how did you expect the handling of the matter to proceed?

A. I expected that during the course of Tuesday there would be a meeting, at which I had hoped to be present, in No.10 with the Cabinet Office where we would discuss this further and decide what to do. The next prominent event from the Liaison Committee meeting was the beginning of the Intelligence and Security Committee hearings into the use of intelligence surrounding the Iraq campaign; and we were already, as it were, sitting on what we felt was a ticking bomb from the Foreign Affairs Committee, it now being virtually 10 days since we had had the letter. They had already reported and in their report they had asked, recommended, that Gilligan's contacts should be further investigated. I felt - there was a collective feeling that we had a dual problem: 1. Bringing forward the information we had, because we believed it was at a state where it was justified to bring it forward, without naming Dr Kelly, while at the same time equally avoiding allegations of a cover-up or of misleading the Intelligence and Security Committee. That was a particular - the latter point was a particular concern in the Cabinet Office, because officials, beginning with John Scarlett, were due to start testifying before the Intelligence and Security Committee on the Wednesday; and it would have therefore been very difficult for them to do so holding to themselves, as it were, the information we had and not sharing that with the Committee.

[13 October, page 18, line 15]

Q. So by the time you arrived the meeting was in fact over?

A. It was in fact over. I was in time to see the Prime Minister saying: Sorry, we have just finished but Jonathan Powell will brief you.

Q. On what did Mr Powell brief you as to what had been decided?

A. He said that we were back, as it were, to the idea of issuing a statement because Ann Taylor would not consider it without that; and that the statement material was there, and colleagues were beginning to draft on that basis; and he suggested, after briefing me on the approach that was being taken, that we went to the room where this was being done, which we subsequently did, and I -

Q. Do you know why that decision had been taken?

A. Well -

Q. The decision to publish the statement at that time?

A. Yes, as I say, because it was felt that we could not wait longer before we disclosed what we knew. Given the immediate pressure of the ISC meeting and the growing problem, the longer we failed to bring the information forward of, as it were, the risk of a cover-up from the Foreign Affairs Committee which was a real concern, as has been testified to subsequently by the Chairman of the FAC, had we sought not to tell them about this.

Q. Did you in fact concur with the decision which had been taken in your absence?

A. I did, as I say. I think had I been at the meeting I would have joined the consensus. The fact was I was not.

Q. What was to be your part in relation to the statement?

A. Well, my part was clearly to ensure that this was something that Dr Kelly would be prepared to put his name to, as it were, not on the statement but to defend in public, as and when it was necessary to do so, which had been made clear to Dr Kelly, in fact, by Mr Hatfield. I mean, I was not actually invited to challenge the judgment of a meeting that had been chaired by the Prime Minister but there was a concern, clearly, this should be something which was acceptable also to Dr Kelly. It was no good trying to issue a statement which he could not live with.

[13 October, page 22, line 23]

A. I do not think so. I think, firstly, we had enough to justify making a statement. In other words, I think it was sufficiently clear that the meeting with Dr Kelly was likely to be the explanation for his story, to justify making a statement of that. I do not think, at that stage, we had enough to be able to say we were absolutely certain it was Dr Kelly, when Dr Kelly himself gave that as one option but not the one he believed to be the case.

The reason for making the statement was we did not feel we could hold on to this information any longer before we brought it into the public domain. As I say, the fear of being accused of a cover-up by the Foreign Affairs Committee, of putting our own Government witnesses in an untenable position really before the ISC. So the statement was made on that basis. There have been arguments, I know, that at least this gave Dr Kelly more time to prepare for the press interest that would be expressed in him. That happens to be true but it was not a driving consideration for us at the time, for me anyway, at the time. I am glad it did provide some time but that was not the overriding reason. The overriding reason was we felt that a statement did need to go out, preferably on Tuesday. Had Dr Kelly said, "I am not happy with it" or, "I want to discuss it further" or, "I am concerned about the implications of this statement", I think - I have no doubt whatsoever we would have discussed it with him and explained to him the reasons why it was necessary for the Government to come forward with a statement of this kind. As it happened, that was not necessary. But I think we could only have delayed it a matter of hours. The sense in No.10 was we really did need to come forward with a statement.

[13 October, page 24, line 18]

Q …. The first of those matters, Sir Kevin, is the Q and A brief. Can I ask you, what was your first involvement with the Q and A brief prepared in this case?

A. When it was shown to me, very briefly, at the end of the discussions about the statement with my staff on the late afternoon of the 8th.

Q. Did you approve it?

A. Yes.

Q. With which aspects of the Q and A brief did you concern yourself at that time?

A. Only with the proposition that if the press came forward with Dr Kelly's name we would have no option but to confirm that information; I am afraid I did not trouble - I should not use this phrase, but I did not go through the thing line by line to look at the detail of information. I regarded it partly as supporting information if Dr Kelly's name was brought forward by the press, and for the most part justificatory information for the statement.

In other words, you know, it is rather old fashioned and quaint to think that the press will simply publish a statement. They are very sceptical. They ask lots of questions on individuals parts of the statement. This is true of any policy issue or any major issue, as this was; and therefore Q and A material is routinely and regularly prepared to, in the modern parlance, stand up the statement, and this was no different from the others.

I never see Q and A briefs as a routine matter. It is done by the staff as subordinate supporting material. Their professional judgment is trusted. The factual basis is usually critical. And this was no different from the rest. I mean, one does not wander around with Q and A material in one's own pocket or talk to the Secretary of State about the details of a Q and A brief. I can understand why it has been focussed on, but it really was not right, that.

Q. Sir Kevin, can I ask you this: was it ever your intention that this Q and A brief should be used as a device or a strategy for covertly making Dr Kelly's name public?

A. Absolutely not. Absolutely categorically not.

Q. Why, then, was it necessary for the press office to confirm Dr Kelly's name, if the press already had it?

A. Well, what were the other options? The options were to deny, which would have been completely untrue and absurd, not just as a matter of credibility but, you know, what was the basic policy here? It was to actually bring this information forward. Denial would have been unacceptable both in principle and in terms of the process we were engaged in. No comment? My guess is "no comment" would have lasted a matter of hours while the press continued to beaver away assiduously to try to find out who it was.

There was a real reason here which was not completely Dr Kelly specific. I do not think there was really anything we could have done to prevent Dr Kelly's name coming into the public domain. We felt this was going to happen, right from the outset, from the moment we received his letter, through the article by Tom Baldwin, through that weekend. But we could prevent other people being the subject of press speculation and spotlight, people who had nothing whatsoever to do with this, but were often in sensitive positions. I mean, we do have some staff that are very sensitively placed and their identity is a matter of concern for us.

Indeed, this was not an abstract concern. One of these individuals did have, as I have testified before, the press round his house trying to get the attention of his children; somebody who did have a threat to his life; and we could protect those people and decided to do so.

So the idea of confirming, if the name was put, was not entirely dependent on Dr Kelly, it was also dependent on other considerations. Protecting other members of staff and the press office themselves, and the Director of News felt that this was also a way of increasing the probability that the press would talk to us before they published a name, which was quite important in trying to manage the issue.

LORD HUTTON: When you refer to someone being under a threat, was that a threat arising from quite separate matters?

A. Yes, totally different matters, my Lord.

LORD HUTTON: The threat was already in existence.

A. Yes, completely different issues.

LORD HUTTON: Your concern was what precisely, Sir Kevin?

A. Well, we have other scientists, other technical specialists who are working in other fields who had had threats against their lives whose names we were keenly anxious not to have in the public domain, or indeed have the press round their houses knowing their identity. If you wish for details, my Lord, I would be very happy to give them to you privately.

LORD HUTTON: No, I just wanted that point clarified. Thank you very much.

[13 October, page 35, line 6]

Q. At this time, Sir Kevin, on the basis of what you were being told and the reports you were receiving, did you have any reason to believe that Dr Kelly might be under intolerable pressure?

A. No, I did not. As I say, all that he was being asked to do was to state before the Committee what he had said to us in his letter. He was put under no pressure to go further than that or to say less than that. Indeed, I was concerned that if he wanted to say that he did not believe he was the source, then he must be free to say that and not be put under the burden of assuming - having to accept our own judgment in the matter. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, I can now appreciate he had a lot more pressures on him than we recognised, but he gave no indication of those pressures whatsoever, and we accepted his account at face value. Of course, at that stage we had no idea of some of the further information that has come out from Andrew Gilligan, from Susan Watts, from Mr Beaumont, from Julie Flint, from Gavin Hewitt. We were unaware of those contacts and therefore had no reason to suppose he was under the pressure he may well in fact have been under.

13 October, page 37, line 22]

A … …There was absolutely no question, as far as I was concerned, of his security clearance being withdrawn or his pension. I was aware that plans were going on for him to go to Iraq. I was content with those, and indeed confirmed it myself on the 17th in a conversation with Martin Howard in that: it is now time for Dr Kelly to go and do what he does best, which is inspect for weapons in Iraq.

[13 October, page 41, line 6]

Q ….. But can I ask you this: did Dr Kelly ever consent to the publication of his name?

A. My understanding, which is very clear, is that there was an understanding between him and Mr Hatfield, as a result of two quite long interviews and the clearing of the statement, that Dr Kelly expected his name to come out and that this was understood, and that this was not something that was cleared with him because we were not, ourselves, in complete control as to when and in precisely what circumstances his name did come out. But I believe this to be part of the a qui that existed between Dr Kelly and the Department.

Q. Would you agree that there is a difference between a person accepting that inevitably his name may come out some time and accepting that the MoD should take positive steps which would lead to the publication of his name?

A. There is a difference but I do not believe that was the critical issue. The Department was taking positive steps to bring forward information which they believed was necessary and vital in the public interest. The Prime Minister himself has said how serious it would have been for him if that slur had remained unchallenged and unchecked and uncorrected. In the process of doing so, it became necessary to provide information about the source which gave credibility to the point that while this was a man who would have certainly been found very interesting by Andrew Gilligan, and who Gilligan may well have regarded as being an important source for information, his identity, his nature, his role was not such as to be able to say with any authority the sorts of things that were alleged by Andrew Gilligan in terms of the sexing up of the dossier by the Government, and by Campbell in particular, against the wishes of the intelligence community. It was in order to give credibility to that statement that the details were made available, not in order to release, as it were, Dr Kelly's name.

Q. And he was never asked that question, was he?

A. Which question?

Q. As to whether he consented to the publication of his name by whatever means.

A. We confirmed the name when it was put to us; and, as I have said before, my understanding was he had reached a point in his discussions with us where he expected his name to come out, and he said it to other people. It was not just a question of relying on what we said. He told Olivia Bosch that he accepted his name would come out. He was reconciled to it or was resigned to it. We know that we told Mrs Kelly that that was so, on the basis of the statement. I do not think he was even aware of the Q and A material.

[13 October, page 44, line 24]

A. No, he was never asked that question because that was not the question we were seeking to establish. As I have said to you before, the problem here is you are assuming, if I may put it like that, there was some process to reveal Dr Kelly's name. There was not a process to reveal Dr Kelly's name. There was a process to release the information which the Government believed it could not sit on any longer because of fear of cover-up, because of witnesses being in very difficult - I mean false positions in front of the ISC, which meant that a statement needed to be made. We hoped that the information could be evaluated further in confidence, in the ISC. We hoped that the BBC would help to resolve remaining doubts by being prepared to say, if only this: no, it is not this individual, it is somebody else; but they were not prepared to cooperate.

We believed on that Tuesday that we had enough justification and need to bring forward the information, without naming Dr Kelly, while not being sufficiently certain to be justified in actually naming Dr Kelly as some people felt would have been ideal. But the force of the requirement to come forward with the statement was what was determining this issue. There was no devious strategy involved, as you put it. We had no need to follow that sort of course.

[13 October, page 55, line 3]

Q. Did you see the Q and A version 2 before you went to No.10, or not?

A. No, as I have already explained, the first time I saw any Q and A material was after I had returned from No.10, when it was shown to me very briefly at the end of my meeting in finalising the statement.

Q. Thank you. When you went to No.10, effectively what you found was a fait accompli, was it not?

A. No, I found that the meeting had ended. As I have already explained, had I been present at the meeting, I have no reason to suppose that I would have disagreed or differed or had a different judgment to offer the Prime Minister. So therefore I was content with the outcome.

Q. You were part of the drafting process which then took place in the afternoon?

A. Yes, I was in the room when the draft was worked up. We did not sit round a table and deliberate sentence by sentence because I think the material was taken from drafts which were already in existence.

Q. Because what took place on the 8th was a very considerable change of stance, was it not?

A. The issue had moved forward.

Q. Yes.

A. There had been several developments since before the weekend.

Q. The statement which was, in fact, approved and released eventually - it is on MoD/1/67 if you want to look at it, page 34 - contained considerably more information about Dr Kelly, did it not?

A. Yes, it did.

Q. I have in mind, in particular, the third paragraph, which we have looked at a number of times previously. But do you agree with that?

A. It does have more material, yes, about the nature of the source.

Q. When you eventually did look at the Q and A material, there had been, within the questions and answers proposed, a similar change of stance, had there not?

A. Well, on that I cannot help you because the only version of the Q and A material I saw was the version which I saw at the end of the day on Tuesday.

Q. Because in the first version - all right, you did not see it - the position adopted with regard to naming was that there was nothing to be gained by naming the individual and that the MoD were not prepared to name him. I expect you know that now, even if you did not know it at the time?

A. Yes, and I assume that was the press office interpretation of the position we had on the Friday evening, after Mr Hatfield's first conversation, which suggested that we would not be going forward with this information, because we were not able, at that stage, to be certain that this was the source.

Q. In version 2 the question asked was, "Is it X?", ie the correct name. And the response to be given was that: we need to tell the individual. You know that now?

A. Yes, because this was before the Government had decided on the statement which was then put to Dr Kelly, which he approved.

Q. So it is all based on the approval of that statement, is it, the change in stance?

A. The approval of that statement was part of the reflection of the - the change in stance, as you put it, was a decision taken by a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.

Q. And version 3, of course, the answer was different, that if the correct name was put it was to be confirmed without consulting the individual. You know that now, do you not?

A. I knew that then because I had seen that press statement.

Q. Yes, it is the change that I am asking you about.

A. The change, I have to tell you, is irrelevant because a policy decision on the handling of this matter had not been taken until the Prime Minister's meeting on the Tuesday. And it was only after that that any of the press people had an authoritative basis on which to proceed.

Q. So are you saying this: that the decisions which led, in fact, to the naming of Dr Kelly were taken at No.10 Downing Street and not by the Ministry of Defence?

A. I was not trying to make that point. I was trying to contrast to you the difference between a formal decision on bringing forward the information into the public arena and the stage before any such decision had been taken.

Q. Whether you were making that point or not, what is the position? That the decision was taken at No.10 and not by the Ministry of Defence, or by the Ministry of Defence?

A. The decision was taken at a meeting in No.10 with which the Ministry of Defence concurred.

Q. You were not there but concurred when you returned; is that right?

A. Yes. But, I mean, it was in line with the sort of advice I was giving from the previous evening.

Q. Could you look, please, at CAB/39/1, which you will find on page 64 of the bundle? This is the extract that we have from Mr Campbell's diary. The entry towards the bottom of the page, last two lines: "Several chats with MoD, Pam Teare, then Geoff H re the source. Felt we should get it out through the papers, then have line to respond and let TB take it on at Liaison Committee." Do you recognise that - I hesitate to use the word "strategy", which you do not like - but do you recognise that as a possible cause of action? Never put to you?

A. No, it was not ever.

Q. Over the page: "TB felt we had to leave it to Omand/Tebbit judgment and they didn't want to do it." What do you understand about "they didn't want to do it"?

A. I understand that Alastair Campbell has a very racy diary style, but this was never to put to us as an option. Omand and Tebbit were unaware of any such suggestion; and I think had we been consulted we would still have been against it. But the Prime Minister was against it before we ever got informed, so there we are.

Q. So you simply do not recognise any suggestion that getting it out through the papers was a matter which was discussed?

A. No. I really am completely unaware of that. It would have been the easiest thing to do had anybody decided to do it, but they did not decide it to do it because it would have been wrong.

Q. It goes on: "Had to go for natural justice." Was that your view?

A. Really I do not think it is helpful for me to discuss Alastair Campbell's diaries because I recognise nothing here that I was aware of. I think, if I may say so, you are coming still at that we had a stratagem to reveal the name, we did not. We had a stratagem to put the information in the public arena without revealing the name, in the hope that it could have been discussed in the ISC, and in the hope we could have had dialogue with the BBC before we reached the stage where we came forward with the name.

Q. What I am investigating, Sir Kevin, is whether there was a difference of opinion between civil servants and politicians. Do you recognise that possible suggestion?

A. What I do recognise, because it was very clear from the meeting I did attend on the Monday morning that the Prime Minister was quite clear that he wanted this handled on the basis of advice from Sir David Omand and myself; and that seems to me to have been a consistent theme throughout. And I was unaware of any other activities that were underway.

Q. Let us go on to examine the position from Dr Kelly's perspective at this stage.

[13 October, page 71, line 24]

Q. Was the Welfare Department involved at all in Dr Kelly's case?

A. I mean, we had no reason to suppose that the Welfare Department should have been involved in -

Q. So the answer to my question is "no".

A. The answer to your question is no, for good informed reasons as opposed to negligent aspects.

Q. I am not stopping you giving the reasons but I am keen you should answer the questions. If you want to give the reasons, please do. Do you want to give any further explanation?

A. There was absolutely no reason for us to suppose that Dr Kelly needed any welfare assistance. He had several conversations with members of my staff, his line manager and the media people, as well as others in his own Department, and there was no evidence that he felt under these pressures. Indeed, to the extent that there was any information, it was that he was rather, as it were, dismissive of the suggestions and help he was given, giving the impression that he was handling it and he knew how to deal with it.

I know Mrs Kelly said he could sometimes be a difficult person to help. There was certainly no impression coming from him to my staff that he was in difficulty. And on the basis of the information we were operating to, there was no real reason why he should have been.

[13 October, page 110, line 25]

A … the decision to issue a statement, that a statement should be made, was one which was arrived at in No.10 which, as it happened, the Ministry of Defence was not present at but which had it been it would, I know, at that point, be fully associated with that decision. The timing of the statement was dictated primarily by the concern to get it out before the ISC began taking testimony the following day, although there was concern about the allegations of cover-up the longer it went on after the FAC had reported.

Q. You mentioned this morning, and I think you were touching on that when you said you have already given evidence about this, that there was a change in stance after the Prime Minister's meeting, is that right, on 8th July? That is what you said this morning.

A. I think the words were put to me in that form.

Q. Do you adopt them or not?

A. I think that there was a continuing process throughout this, as Ministers and officials were judging the situation. It just happened to be that that was the decisive meeting, yes.

Q. The decisive meeting?

A. I would not say there was a change in stance quite. I would not particularly use those words.

Q. What changed as a result of that meeting?

A. What changed was a decision to issue a statement.

Q. And a decision to issue the Q and A material with it or was that -

A. Yes. But as I keep insisting, the Q and A was simply the subordinate material supporting a statement, as it always does when you have a major statement on an issue of policy.

(1) I am satisfied that the reports contained in Mr Gilligan's broadcasts at 6.07am and 7.32am on 29 May that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong or was questionable before it was written in the dossier was an allegation against the integrity of the Government of the greatest gravity which was unfounded and which created a major controversy.

(2) I am satisfied from the evidence of the Prime Minister, Mr Geoffrey Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, Sir David Omand, Sir David Manning, Sir Kevin Tebbit and a number of other witnesses that throughout the period from 4 July to 8 July the Government was becoming increasingly concerned that if it did not issue a statement that a civil servant had come forward to say that he had had a meeting with Mr Gilligan, it would be charged with a cover up and with concealing this fact from the FAC which on 7 July published its report into its inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq, Mr Gilligan's broadcasts on the Today programme being an important part of the context within which the FAC had decided to embark on this inquiry. I am further satisfied that this was the principal reason why it was decided to issue the MoD statement on Tuesday 8 July.

(3) I am satisfied that the Government's concern that it would be charged with a cover up if it did not issue a statement was justified and well founded. In his evidence Mr Donald Anderson MP, the Chairman of the FAC, stated that he and other members of the FAC learned of the MoD's statement on 8 or 9 July and decided to hold a meeting of the Committee on 10 July. At that meeting there was a difference of opinion as to whether the FAC should reopen its inquiry and call Dr Kelly to give evidence. Mr Anderson was not in favour of recalling Dr Kelly because he felt that the Committee would meet the difficulty that people would not be prepared to disclose things in respect of journalists, but the majority of the Committee voted to call Dr Kelly to give evidence.

In his evidence Mr Anderson said:

[21 August, page 22, line 15]

A. But I made clear my own view to the Committee. There were a number of colleagues who agreed with me. In a good tempered way other colleagues said: no, this really needs to be clarified, because fundamental to our report had been this question whether the politicians had overborne the intelligence community in respect of the information, and that we had come to certain views, and those views might well be fundamentally overturned as a result of meeting the person who may have been the source, and therefore it would look odd if we did not seek to clarify the position.

In my own judgment, my Lord, if we had known, for example, prior to concluding the report that the civil servant had volunteered himself, probably members of the Committee, because of the importance of that, would have deferred publishing the report and would have sought to clarify matters as best we could. But we had concluded our report, we had published it, and this was the difference of view; and those who thought that we would be open to criticism if we did not seek to clarify these matters were in the majority.

LORD HUTTON: Yes. So if you had known on the Friday, 4th July, when the report was in the process of being printed, that this civil servant had come forward, you might have delayed publication of your report?

A. I can only give my own opinion on this my Lord.

LORD HUTTON: Yes, quite.

A. That the Committee works in a wonderful way and I cannot always anticipate what my -

LORD HUTTON: But your own personal view would have been?

A. My own judgment would have been that it was such an important new development that it could well have persuaded the Committee to hear further witnesses because our conclusions could well have been fundamentally altered.

Mr Andrew Mackinlay, a member of the FAC, said in his evidence:

[26 August, page 2, line 19]

A. The conflict between Gilligan and Campbell, No.10 and the BBC is not my business. The important thing was there was somebody out there, amongst others probably, who we know was a senior public servant - or that is what was reported - who was repeatedly uttering that the Government had exaggerated the case. Mr Gilligan is the one who is continually reporting that. Clearly it is key to our inquiry to try to seek and to probe what Gilligan's source is and, if we can find a source, on what basis is he saying the Government exaggerated the case for war. That was our interest.

I could not give a damn about conflict as such between Gilligan and Campbell. It is the fact that the Gilligan man was reporting that there was somebody senior out there who was saying that the case had been exaggerated. Of course there were others printing it as well. I go back to this question of currency. In my view we would have been failing in our duty if we had not pursued it, but the Gilligan/Campbell thing is because of what Gilligan was saying and the fact that there was somebody out there who I think we needed to see.

[26 August, page 17, line 21]

LORD HUTTON: There has been evidence from a number of witnesses in the Government that the view which they took was that your Committee had been investigating Mr Gilligan's report, that this civil servant had come forward to say that he might be regarded as the source and that therefore the Government was under a duty to inform your Committee and to let your Committee examine him, if they so wished, and that if they had not done that, they might have been charged with conducting a cover-up. Now what is your view on that?

A. Yes, sir. A number of aspects there, sir.

LORD HUTTON: Yes.

A. May I just complete this one? Again those questions were against a backdrop, if you remember, of me saying: Dr Kelly, has there been any investigation you know of to find out the sources?

LORD HUTTON: If you would like to continue adding about your -

A. Sorry, counsel, I do apologise.

MR DINGEMANS: Do not worry. Answer his Lordship's question.

A. I do not buy this business of him coming forward voluntarily. I think by this time the heat was on. I also -

LORD HUTTON: I was asking you more about the Government's views that they were obliged to disclose to your Committee that this civil servant had come forward.

A. Lord Hutton, you are absolutely correct, they were obliged to disclose this to the Committee but they did not. They became aware of this I think on 30th June. They in my view deliberately stalled, hoping our report would come out. I saw on your website some note from - I forget who it was, one of the senior people, saying: I think they were already abroad. We were not already abroad. How he knows our discussions, our travel arrangements, et cetera.

The whole thing, in my view, was designed to hope that they could avoid him coming before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. I noticed that Sir Kevin in his evidence to you argued he should not do so. Sir Kevin, in my view, is wrong on two counts. One, basic British constitution that we are entitled to scrutinise; I have already covered that. The second one, I think he is badly lacking in political antennae, which he is paid to have, because there is no way on God's earth in my view that the press would have allowed, once Dr Kelly became known, for him not to have been scrutinised in public, and I have to be candid with you: I for one would not have acquiesced in that by my silence. I think it is our duty to have Dr Kelly before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

LORD HUTTON: So therefore is your view that once it was known to the Ministry of Defence that he had come forward -

A. Yes.

LORD HUTTON: - and might have been the source, they were then under a duty to inform your Committee and also to - whether one says require or ask him to come forward?

A. As I said in my witness statement, my Lord, I think what they should have done immediately -

LORD HUTTON: Just on that direct question: is it your view that once Dr Kelly had come forward to the Ministry of Defence, that they were under a duty to inform your Committee and also were under a duty to ask him or to require him to appear before your Committee?

A. They are under a duty to inform us immediately and then give us the opportunity of deciding if we wanted to call him, which we would have done. All of this is against a backdrop. I do not believe they were really trying to find the source. That is why I go back to also the questions before. They did not want to discover Dr Kelly. They hoped the thing would burn out, fizzle out, in my view. That is why I asked him if there had been any investigations. There clearly had not been rigorous or vigorous investigations.

When Dr Kelly appeared before the FAC Sir John Stanley MP asked him:

Q171 Sir John Stanley: One final point on the timetable. What was the date on which you went to your line managers expressing the concern that Mr Gilligan might have drawn on his conversation with you?

Dr Kelly: I wrote a letter on Monday 30 June.

Q172 Sir John Stanley: How do you explain the reasons for the delay between the letter you wrote on 30 June and the release of the Ministry of Defence statement throwing you to the wolves?

Dr Kelly: I cannot explain the bureaucracy that went on in between. I think it went through the line management system and went through remarkably quickly.

Q173 Sir John Stanley: Did you get any impression that the statement was delayed by the Ministry of Defence in order to ensure that it went out only after our report was published?

Dr Kelly: I cannot answer that question. I really do not know.

[24 September, page 15, line 19]

Q. Are you suggesting that these eminent Governors, whose qualifications you described a few minutes ago, were people who although they embodied the BBC cannot be trusted with that information?

A. I am certainly not suggesting my Governors cannot be trusted. What I am saying is information given to 12 Governors with a lot of other people present is not likely to remain secret. That is not because the people cannot be trusted.

Q. It must be because somebody cannot be trusted.

A. No, I do not believe it is because anybody cannot be trusted. I think that making the name of a source known to such a wide circle of people or even the position of the source, Mr Sumption, in real life, despite the fact that you actively trust the people you are telling, greatly increases the likelihood that the name of the source will become public.

If I believed that information could be held secret among such a large number of Governors and non-Governors, I think I would be flying in the face of a great deal of evidence of what happens in governments and in other organisations. I do not believe that you could have assumed that would be held secret by the most trustworthy group of people in the world, and these are trustworthy people.

[1 September, page 19, line 7]

A. Well, we had a meal and then we went in to sit and watch the news. He seemed a little bit reluctant to come and watch the news. The main story was a source had identified itself. Immediately David said to me "it's me".

Q. The story, we have seen a press statement that was put out by the Ministry of Defence on 8th July, was that the story that was on the television?

A. That is right.

Q. And which channel were you watching, do you recall?

A. I am not sure. I think it was probably Channel 4, I am not sure.

Q. Dr Kelly said to you "it's me"?

A. "It's me". My reaction was total dismay. My heart sank. I was terribly worried because the fact that he had said that to me, I knew then he was aware his name would be in the public domain quite soon. He confirmed that feeling of course.

[1 September, page 20, line 19]

LORD HUTTON: Did he say, Mrs Kelly, why he thought his name might or would become public?

A. Yes. Because the MoD had revealed that a source had made itself known, he, in his own mind, said that he knew from that point that the press would soon put two and two together. We have an amazing press in this country who it does not take them long to find out details of this sort and he is well known of course in his field, so that would have been another easy job for them.

[4 September, page 51, line 12]

Q. And did you get the impression after the 10th July, which was when his name was out in the press, did you get any impression that there was a radical change in his behaviour or the way he spoke to you?

A. No. At some point, I think before his name actually came out, he mentioned that he had, in his meeting with the MoD, that they had told him that his name might come out. And that evening when I spoke to him he says: well, you know - he was somewhat resigned to the fact that his name would be coming out, at that time, yes.

LORD HUTTON: What date would it have been that you had this conversation that it seemed his mind was resigned to his name coming out?

A. Well, he seemed - accepted - this would have been around 9th - the meeting he - it was a meeting he had at the MoD where it was discussed.

LORD HUTTON: I see, yes.

A. This is backtracking now.

LORD HUTTON: I appreciate that, yes.

A. He understood that his name was likely to come out.

MR KNOX: You understood that from conversations you had with him on about 7th July or was that something -

A. Whenever it was the day that he had the meeting where I think in the previous testimony we heard discussions where he was at the MoD and there was -

LORD HUTTON: Yes, he had two meetings with the MoD.

A. Hmm.

LORD HUTTON: One was on -

A. The training course day?

LORD HUTTON: Yes, that was the second meeting. He came back for that second meeting. Do you think it was the-

A. The second one, I think.

LORD HUTTON: This was the second meeting, was it?

A. Yes. The first one I surmised that something was up, but he did not tell me anything about it. He did not mention anything, no.

Q. Yes, it is the change [in the Q and A material] that I am asking you about.

A. The change, I have to tell you, is irrelevant because a policy decision on the handling of this matter had not been taken until the Prime Minister's meeting on the Tuesday. And it was only after that that any of the press people had an authoritative basis on which to proceed.

Q. So are you saying this: that the decisions which led, in fact, to the naming of Dr Kelly were taken at No.10 Downing Street and not by the Ministry of Defence?

A. I was not trying to make that point. I was trying to contrast to you the difference between a formal decision on bringing forward the information into the public arena and the stage before any such decision had been taken.

Q. Whether you were making that point or not, what is the position? That the decision was taken at No. 10 and not by the Ministry of Defence, or by the Ministry of Defence?

A. The decision was taken at a meeting in No.10 with which the Ministry of Defence concurred.

Q. You were not there but concurred when you returned; is that right?

A. Yes. But, I mean, it was in line with the sort of advice I was giving from the previous evening.

Q. What changed as a result of that meeting [on 8 July]?

A. What changed was a decision to issue a statement.

Q. And a decision to issue the Q and A material with it or was that -

A. Yes. But as I keep insisting, the Q and A was simply the subordinate material supporting a statement, as it always does when you have a major statement on an issue of policy.

A … By the time I got back to London there had been a further meeting involving the Prime Minister and there had also been the news that Ann Taylor was not prepared to take this into the Committee without a public statement being made first.

Q. Do you recall what time you got back from Portsmouth?

A. I think about 2.15.

Q. Did you go straight to No.10?

A. I did not go straight to No. 10, I went to my office. I think there was a misunderstanding. I thought the meeting was at 2.30; in fact, the meeting finished at 2.30 in No.10. I was in time only to be given some statement material that officials had been working on during my absence.

Q. So by the time you arrived the meeting was in fact over?

A. It was in fact over. I was in time to see the Prime Minister saying: Sorry, we have just finished but Jonathan Powell will brief you.

Q. On what did Mr Powell brief you as to what had been decided?

A. He said that we were back, as it were, to the idea of issuing a statement because Ann Taylor would not consider it without that; and that the statement material was there, and colleagues were beginning to draft on that basis; and he suggested, after briefing me on the approach that was being taken, that we went to the room where this was being done, which we subsequently did, and I -

Q. Do you know why that decision had been taken?

A. Well -

Q. The decision to publish the statement at that time?

A. Yes, as I say, because it was felt that we could not wait longer before we disclosed what we knew. Given the immediate pressure of the ISC meeting and the growing problem, the longer we failed to bring the information forward of, as it were, the risk of a cover-up from the Foreign Affairs Committee which was a real concern, as has been testified to subsequently by the Chairman of the FAC, had we sought not to tell them about this.

Q. Did you in fact concur with the decision which had been taken in your absence?

A. I did, as I say. I think had I been at the meeting I would have joined the consensus. The fact was I was not.

(1) It is in the interests of the Government to name Dr Kelly as Mr Gilligan's source because this will help the Government to show that Dr Kelly did not have the knowledge about the dossier to justify Mr Gilligan's allegations.

(2) The Government is not prepared to name Dr Kelly directly because if this is done it will bring down criticism on the Government.

(3) Therefore, instead of naming Dr Kelly directly, the Government will issue a statement that an unnamed civil servant has come forward, and the Government will expect or hope that a journalist will suggest that the unnamed civil servant is Dr Kelly.

(4) This will enable the Government to confirm that Dr Kelly was the civil servant.

(5) In this way the Government will be able to identify Dr Kelly as Mr Gilligan's source without incurring the criticism which would arise from naming Dr Kelly directly.

[21 August, page 122, line 20]

Q. We know that Dr Kelly's name was finally put in the press on 10th July as Gilligan's source. Did you begin to have your suspicions as to this before 10th July?

A. Yes.

Q. If so, could you explain when and why?

A. It first occurred to me that Dr Kelly could be the source about five days before he was named, and I recall -

Q. That would be, what, Saturday 5th July?

A. It may have been the Friday then, because I recall - I just recall it striking me that it could have been Dr Kelly.

Q. Can you give -

A. There was so much detail about him, you know - I was aware of who Dr Kelly was before I had actually spoken to him, and because of that it seemed patently obvious, from a lot of the hints that were being dropped, that he had to be a very strong candidate.

LORD HUTTON: There was so much detail about him, this was on 4th and 5th July. Where was this detail?

A. I suppose - yes, this is difficult. I would rather not answer that question.

LORD HUTTON: I see. You said hints were being dropped about him.

A. Yes.

MR KNOX: Was this hints you were receiving privately or hints you were receiving by reading the press?

A. I think both. I am sorry, I do not want to be drawn on this simply because of confidentiality of sources and because - yes.

Q. I am obviously not asking you about your sources now, but certainly so far as the press is concerned, the first time that any major development appears to have taken place is Saturday, 5th July when there is more information put out?

A. It must have been the Saturday then. It must have been the Saturday then because it struck me, I remember having a conversation with a colleague saying: I have an idea who this is. But I thought it was on the Friday, not the Saturday.

[27 August, page 52, line 6]

Q. Do you know whether or not Dr Kelly was told about the draft Q and A material and the Q and A material as deployed?

A. I do not, no. But can I make clear that I did not see either of these documents. They were not submitted to my office. That would not be something that I would normally deal with.

[27 August, page 69, line 22]

A …. I did not see this Q and A and played no part in its preparation, so it is a little difficult for me to comment about any underlying purpose.

[27 August, page 100, line 6]

Q. Were you aware that there has been some evidence that Mr Taylor, who I think is your special adviser, is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Had confirmed Dr Kelly's name to journalists?

A. Hmm.

Q. Were you aware of that?

A. I was not specifically aware at the time but I - excuse me. I have learned since that that happened, yes.

Q. And what is your view on that?

A. Well, I assume that that was consistent with the question and answer process that had been agreed within the department. I do not think it occurred in any earlier timeframe.

Q. The question and answers material that your special adviser knows about but you did not?

A. I did not see the question and answer, but I was obviously aware of the advice that I had received that if the right name was given to an MoD press officer they should confirm it. I am not suggesting - I am not suggesting, for a moment, that I was not aware of that; and obviously my special adviser would have been aware of it as well.

[22 September, page 2, line 4]

Q. The Inquiry has heard that in the early evening of 9th July the MoD press office confirmed to a journalist the identity of the person who had come forward, Dr Kelly. Were you aware, on 9th July, that the MoD press office was adopting an approach under which it was proposing to confirm the identity of the individual if the correct name was put?

A. Yes, I was. I had had a conversation earlier that day with Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary, in which he had set out to me the concerns that he had as far as the press office were concerned, in particular that individual press officers should not be seen to be lying to journalists, and that it was better that they should, if the right name was put to them, acknowledge the fact. He was also very concerned that there was a risk to other members of staff, other officials, and he did not want anything said by the press office to lead journalists in the direction of the wrong official.

Q. It has been suggested in certain quarters that your previous evidence to this Inquiry in relation to this matter may have been inaccurate, so perhaps we should take a moment to look at that. You gave oral evidence to the Inquiry on 27th August. Prior to that, had you provided to the Inquiry a written statement?

A. Yes, I had.

Q. Do you have a copy of that statement?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. When did you write that statement?

A. It was shortly before my previous appearance. I was required to submit it 24 hours in advance.

Q. Could I ask you, please, to read aloud paragraphs 25, 26 and 27 of that statement?

[22 September, page 4, line 5]

A …..26. During the course of Wednesday 9th July the Permanent Secretary told me how the Ministry of Defence press office would deal with press enquiries trying to identify the official referred to in the Ministry of Defence statement. The decision to confirm the name of Dr Kelly if it was put to the MoD directly was to avoid any suggestion that we were in any way misleading journalists. We did not want anyone to claim that we had been less than straightforward in our dealing with them, not least in the light of the FAC's conclusion that Andrew Gilligan's alleged contact should be thoroughly investigated.

27. I did not brief Dr Kelly's name to any journalists, neither was I aware of any strategy to do so. The defensive question and answer material prepared to help the MoD press office respond to possible press enquiries was not put to me for approval and I did not see it at the time.

[13 October, page 29, line 14]

Q. Did you discuss with the Secretary of State at all the fact that the press office would confirm Dr Kelly's name if the press already had it?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. Do you recall when and on what occasion you discussed that with him?

A. Well, I think I probably mentioned it first on the early evening of the 8th. My recollection of that is not absolutely precise. Our offices are next to each other. There is a level of trust between myself and the Secretary of State which is quite strong and therefore we do talk to each other quite regularly. I could not recall whether I had directly said this to the Secretary of State or through my private secretary. I certainly had that conversation with him during the following day and recall, very specifically, confirming this approach in the late morning in the margins of the commemorative event for the Korean war victims. So, I mean, there is no doubt in my own mind that this was understood between us.

[18 September, page 116, line 13]

Q. Moving on, then, to 9th July, was there a Secretary of State's briefing meeting that morning?

A. Yes, there was.

Q. Did you attend it?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. How clear is your recollection as to what was discussed at the meeting?

A. I mean, I recall there was a meeting. I can recall what the key topics of conversation were, but I do not recall exactly who said what.

Q. Do you recall who was there?

A. The Secretary of State, his principal private secretary, Richard Taylor, special adviser, myself. I think that was all.

Q. What is your recollection as to what was discussed?

A. Well, it was a fairly brief meeting, because I know we had another one that was about to start very shortly afterwards. But my recollection is that the bulk of the meeting was to do with discussions of how we might follow up with the correspondence with the BBC.

Q. Was anything said about the Q and A material?

A. I think it is likely that I might have run through the - an outline of the Q and A material and the approach that we were adopting.

Q. Would you have had any particular reason to do that?

A. No, other than at that meeting it has several purposes: one, I go through the press coverage of the morning and I would normally outline how we were handling sort of main issues of the day. And it would be in that line that I would have done so.

[18 September, page 132, line 17]

Q. What about the routine press meeting on 9th July which you attended and which other people attended as well?

A. That was the day after the draft had been approved.

Q. Yes. Did the Secretary of State see that document at that meeting?

A. I do not recall.

Q. You see, we have heard some evidence to suggest that he did, and that there was some brief discussion about this document at that meeting.

A. Hmm, hmm.

Q. You know that, I expect. Do you agree or disagree with that evidence or do you not remember?

A. I do not recall there being a long discussion about the Q and A.

Q. Nobody said that there was a long discussion.

A. No.

Q. A brief discussion is what I put to you.

A. I cannot recall the detail, though I think it is highly likely that I would have outlined some of the material in the Q and A, but I cannot give you a verbatim account.

Q. To the Secretary of State?

A. Yes.

Q. And no doubt in order to outline the material you would have had the document with you.

A. Yes, I suspect I would have done.

Q. And no doubt you would have shown it to him?

A. He may have already had it. He may have already -

Q. Do you know or not know?

A. I do not know. I did not show him a document at that meeting, because, as I say, the bulk of that meeting was about how to follow up the correspondence with the BBC.

[4 September, page 76, line 14]

A. Yes. On the morning of Wednesday 9th July I attended the routine meeting in the Secretary of State's office to discuss media issues of the day.

Q. Is that a morning meeting every day?

A. Yes, it happens most days. It starts each morning with looking through press cuttings for the day and considering whether there is any follow up which may be required by the Ministry of Defence.

Q. Had there been a similar meeting on the 8th July?

A. To the best of my recollection, yes.

Q. But, at that, nothing had been said about the draft press statement?

A. No.

Q. And on 9th July, what is said at that meeting?

LORD HUTTON: Could I just ask you: who was at that meeting, Mr Taylor?

A. On that day, Wednesday 9th July, the routine press meeting was attended by the Secretary of State, by his principal private secretary, Mr Peter Watkins, by the Director of News, Pamela Teare, and me.

[4 September, page 81, line 8]

Q. Was anything mentioned about the Q and A material?

A. At the end of a discussion on how to follow up the letter to Mr Davies there was a brief discussion on what we should do if journalists were to ring and put the name directly to the Department of who the official was. I would not call it a discussion of the Q and A material. There was a discussion of one of the questions, which I have since learnt was in the Q and A material.

Q. Was there any discussion about the other questions in the Q and A material?

A. No, not -

Q. Was he a member of UNSCOM et cetera?

A. No, to the best of my recollection we only discussed the rationale for what to do if the name was put directly to the department.

[4 September, page 82, line 21]

Q … Do you know from the discussions that took place on 9th July whether Ms Teare had discussed this Q and A material with anyone else?

A. Not in that discussion. It was a brief discussion about the rationale for the approach of what to do if a journalist rang directly with Dr Kelly's name.

Q. Have you found out since whether or not Ms Teare discussed this Q and A material with anyone?

A. I have only learnt through the course of the Inquiry that she discussed it with the Permanent Secretary's office, but not at the time.

Q. Not from what the Inquiry has heard, from our own research at the Ministry of Defence. No-one has told you, as it were?

A. I did not see the question and answer brief until after Dr Kelly had died; and I did not therefore ask any questions about it in this timeframe.

(1) It is apparent from the evidence that Sir Kevin Tebbit gave thought to Dr Kelly's welfare. In his minute of 10 July 2003 to Mr Hoon he recommended that Mr Hoon should resist Dr Kelly appearing before the FAC when he was going to appear before the ISC, and he wrote:

However it would not have been possible for Mr Hoon to refuse to permit Dr Kelly to appear before the ISC as it is the Committee directly responsible for investigating intelligence matters. I also consider that the evidence of Mr Donald Anderson MP and Mr Andrew Mackinlay MP shows that there would have been a serious political storm if Mr Hoon had refused to permit Dr Kelly to appear before the FAC and that Mr Hoon's decision not to accept Sir Kevin Tebbit's advice and to agree to Dr Kelly appearing before the FAC is not a decision which can be subject to valid criticism.

(2) Sir Kevin Tebbit also enquired from other officials how Dr Kelly was bearing up under the stress and he was told that Dr Kelly was handling the pressure pretty well. There is a minute from Mr Colin Smith of the FCO to another official in the FCO dated 14 July 2003 referring to a meeting which he had attended that morning on Iraq's WMD and which also had been attended by Mr Martin Howard. In the minute Mr Smith stated "Kelly is apparently feeling the pressure, and does not appear to be handling it well". In his evidence Mr Howard said that he did not recall saying that, and if he did, it would purely have been passing on a second hand account of what might have been said to him because he had not seen Dr Kelly since his meeting with him and Mr Hatfield on 7 July. Mr Howard said that at the end of the meeting with Dr Kelly on the afternoon of 14 July Dr Kelly was composed, obviously nervous, which was to be expected, but he saw no evidence to show that he was not ready for the meeting. When Dr Wells was asked by Mr Gompertz whether he thought that some form of professional counselling would have been a good idea Dr Wells replied:

The assessment of how a person under stress is reacting can be a somewhat subjective one which depends to some extent on the person making it, and I think that different people may have formed different impressions as to how Dr Kelly was reacting to the strain. Dr Kelly's daughter, Rachel, who was very close to her father, knew that he was under great strain but her fiancé, Mr David Wilkins said that on Sunday night, 13 July, and on the morning and evening of Monday 14 July, he did not seem overly agitated or under stress and seemed "okay", although at supper on Tuesday evening, 15 July, after he had appeared before the FAC he seemed to be very withdrawn within himself and it was noticeable that he was going through some personal trauma. Therefore I think it was reasonable for Sir Kevin Tebbit to take the view, which he described in evidence, that Dr Kelly was an experienced and robust individual who had dealt well with stressful and difficult situations in Iraq.

(3) As I have stated, I am satisfied that Mr Hatfield was not engaged in any "plea bargain" strategy when he conducted his meetings with Dr Kelly on 4 and 7 July, and I think his notes dated 7 and 8 July of meetings (see paragraphs 49 and 64) show that he dealt with Dr Kelly in a way which was fair to him.

(4) On the afternoon of 8 July after Mr Hatfield had read over on the telephone to Dr Kelly the new draft of the MoD press statement, Mr Hatfield advised him that he should talk to the press office and to Dr Wells about support.

(5) On the evening of 8 July between 8pm and 9pm after the MoD statement had been issued Mrs Kate Wilson, the chief press officer in the MoD, having agreed to do so in a discussion with Ms Pamela Teare, the Director of News in the MoD, telephoned Dr Kelly and told him that the statement had been put out, that the press office had had a lot of follow up questions and that he needed to think about alternative accommodation. Mrs Wilson asked Dr Kelly if there was anything he wanted from her and he said there was not.

(6) I am satisfied that Dr Wells, who liked and admired Dr Kelly, tried to help and support him after the MoD statement was issued on 8 July. Dr Wells telephoned Dr Kelly when he was in the West Country from 10 to 13 July to arrange his appearances before the FAC and the ISC, but he also called him to check that he was bearing up under the stress of press interest. In addition Dr Wells had arranged to attend a meeting in New York during the first part of the week commencing Monday 14 July, but he cancelled his visit to New York in order to be in London to give support to Dr Kelly and he told Dr Kelly that he was doing this. Dr Wells also offered Dr Kelly hotel accommodation in London on the night of Monday 14 July to save him from travelling up and down to London from his home in Oxfordshire, but Dr Kelly said that he wished to stay with his daughter in Oxford.

(7) When Dr Kelly went to give evidence before the FAC on Tuesday 15 July Dr Wells and Wing Commander Clark, who was a friend and colleague of Dr Kelly in the MoD, accompanied him in order to give him moral support and sat behind him during the hearing. They were also accompanied by Mrs Wilson who was present to give Dr Kelly assistance if the press tried to interview him. Dr Wells and Wing Commander Clark also accompanied Dr Kelly when he gave evidence in private before the ISC on Wednesday 16 July.

(8) The issue was raised in the course of the Inquiry whether an official of the MoD should have sat, not behind, but beside Dr Kelly at the table to give him support when he was questioned by the FAC. Dr Wells gave evidence that when he was in the West Country Dr Kelly told him on the telephone that he would like a colleague to accompany him to the FAC because he was uncertain about procedures. Therefore when Mr Hoon wrote to the Chairman of the FAC, Mr Donald Anderson, on 11 July, he said in the course of the letter: "As he is not used to this degree of public exposure, Dr Kelly has asked if he could be accompanied by a colleague. MoD officials will discuss this further with the Clerk." However when Dr Wells discussed this point with the Clerk of the FAC on the morning of Monday 14 July the Clerk told him that if a colleague sat beside Dr Kelly at the table it would be open to the FAC to ask questions of the colleague. In his evidence Dr Wells said that when he and Mr Martin Howard met Dr Kelly in the afternoon of Monday 14 July he raised with him the matter of a colleague sitting beside him, and it was implicit in Dr Wells' evidence that he told Dr Kelly about the point made by the Clerk of the FAC. At the end of the meeting after the discussion about the likely areas of questioning by the FAC and the ISC and about how the two Committees were differently constituted, Dr Wells asked Dr Kelly how he felt about having a colleague next to him at the table and Dr Kelly said that as he now had a good understanding of the procedures and the likely areas of questioning he no longer felt the need to have a colleague sitting beside him. I think it is probable that if a colleague had been sitting beside him this would have given Dr Kelly a feeling of support, particularly when he was questioned in a forceful way by one member of the Committee. But looking at the situation as it presented itself to the MoD before the hearing, I think it is understandable that the MoD decided not to have an official sitting beside Dr Kelly. First, because Dr Kelly was being called as a witness, not to state an official line, but to state his own personal involvement in having an unauthorised meeting with Mr Gilligan and, secondly, because a colleague sitting beside Dr Kelly might have been regarded as an official "minder" who was sitting beside Dr Kelly to inhibit him in the expression of his own views relating to WMD.

[1 September, page 38, line 5]

Q. Did you speak to him at all on the Monday [14th July]?

A. Yes, I did. After he had returned to Rachel's he rang me to say that the day had not been too tormenting. He was not worried about what had gone on by that day. I asked if he was being supported by the MoD and he said: I suppose so, yes. He always previously said yes when I asked this question on several occasions before, so he was a little bit less certain, I felt.

I was a bit worried about the lack of support or the lack of apparent support. He was not an easy man to support in some ways, he would always try to give the impression that he was okay, and I think his immediate line manager was a much younger man than him and he would have tried, as he did with us, to protect him from his own feelings. He tried to keep his feelings to himself.

[1 September, page 159, line 2]

Q. And did he comment about the support or absence of support he was getting?

A. Yes, he did. He said that his colleagues - he said that colleagues had been "tremendously supportive", that is a direct quote. I remember him saying that, that they had been tremendously supportive. I did get the impression that it was not all colleagues. I cannot remember his exact wording, but the implication and the impression I was left with was that it was some but not all.

[19 August, page 151, line 7]

A …. But I think again, and I emphasise this is with an element of hindsight, that probably what I feel I maybe should have expressed more forcefully at that time is: look, if you are in this kind of situation you do have to have some element of control over the process here. You cannot just let this sort of dribble out in a way that you are not clear how it is then going to unfold. So I think the desired outcome, given that everybody, including it seems Dr Kelly, understood that it is likely because of the importance of this development he was likely to be identified, he was likely to have to appear at one or both Select Committees, far better it would have been for that to be announced properly, cleanly, straightforwardly and then you can actually put in place all the proper support that somebody who is not used to this kind of pressure can then maybe better deal with.

[1 September, page 23, line 8]

Q. Had you spoken with Dr Kelly at all during the day [Wednesday 9th July] about his reaction to the news the night before?

A. Yes, I had. He said several times over coffee, over lunch, over afternoon tea that he felt totally let down and betrayed. It seemed to me that this was all part of what might have happened anyway because it seemed to have been a very loose arrangement with the MoD, they did not seem to take a lot of account of his time. There was a lot of wasting of his time. I just felt that this must have been very frustrating for him. David often said: they are not using me properly. He felt that the MoD were not quite sure how to use his expertise at times, although I have later seen his manager's reports on his staff appraisals where he obviously did warrant his or respect his expertise. But that is not the impression that I got.

Q. You say, I think, that he had felt totally let down and betrayed. Who did he say that of?

A. He did not say in so many terms but I believed he meant the MoD because they were the ones that had effectively let his name be known in the public domain.

Q. And did you get the impression that he was happy or unhappy that this press statement had been made?

A. Well, he did not know about it until after it had happened. So he was - I think initially he had been led to believe that it would not go into the public domain. He had received assurances and that is why he was so very upset about it.

Q. What, he did not know that the press statement saying an unnamed source had come forward would be made?

A. Not until after the event.

LORD HUTTON: Did he say from whom he had received assurances Mrs Kelly?

A. From his line manager, from all their seniors and from the people he had been interviewed by.

MR DINGEMANS: And his reaction on hearing the news, you said he had seemed slightly reluctant to watch the news that night.

A. Yes, indeed.

Q. Was that because he had seen an earlier news, do you think, or because he knew something might be coming up?

A. I think it was probably trepidation that this was the moment. He was not quite sure when it would actually happen but since Nick had come it was going to be a big problem. He knew that.

[1 September, page 87, line 11]

Q. How did he seem generally to be in this conversation [on Tuesday 15th July]?

A. Tired, but otherwise it really was a very normal conversation. Believe me, I have lain awake many nights since, going over in my mind whether I missed anything significant. In my line of work I do deal with people who may have suicidal thoughts and I ought to be able to spot those, even on a telephone conversation. But I have gone over and over in my mind the two conversations we had and he certainly did not betray to me any impression that he was anything other than tired. He certainly did not convey to me that he was feeling depressed; and absolutely nothing that would have alerted me to the fact that he might have been considering suicide.

[1 September, page 47, line 4]

Q. How would you describe him at this time [lunchtime on Thursday 17th July]?

A. Oh, I just thought he had a broken heart. He really was very, very - he had shrunk into himself. He looked as though he had shrunk, but I had no idea at that stage of what he might do later, absolutely no idea at all.