Another Amendment proposed, in line 4, to leave out the word "properly" and to insert the word 33"fully."—(Mr David Wilshire.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Other Amendments made.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 18, to leave out the words "professional duty" and to insert the word "duties."—(Mr David Wilshire.)

Question, That the Amendment be made, put and negatived.

Paragraph, as amended, agreed to.

Paragraph 49, read as follows:

The conflicting accounts of the 23 December meeting in the FCO can only lead to one conclusion: someone is not telling the truth. We cannot ascertain what that truth is. However, assuming that Mr Penfold has an accurate recollection, we still believe that he was seriously at fault for not ensuring that a written account of his meeting on 19 December with President Kabbah was given to officials at the FCO. He ought not to have relied on an oral account. We accept Mr Penfold's claim that "the circumstances made it very difficult" to report in writing so far as making a report immediately after the meeting was concerned. But on his return to London, he could have produced a written report. We believe that to rely on an oral report was very unsatisfactory and unprofessional.

Amendments made.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 10, to leave out from the word "report" to the end of the paragraph.—(Mr David Wilshire.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Another Amendment made.

Paragraph, as amended, agreed to.

Paragraph 50 read, as follows:

After the lunch on 23 December, Mr Penfold did not telephone the Department with an immediate report. Instead his report was included in a hand-written letter which he told us that he posted from home in Abingdon before departing for holiday on 30 December. This letter never reached its intended recipients. Mr Penfold argued, in fact, that nothing new had been disclosed at lunch on 23 December which he had not already told the Department but that his letter was an opportunity to record a new fact—that the Sandline contract had been signed by President Kabbah, a fact reported to him by telephone by Mr Spicer after Christmas. Nevertheless, we would have expected Mr Penfold to be far more rigorous and professional in his communications with his managers—perhaps by using recorded mail or faxing the letter to them or telephoning to ensure that it had arrived or even, in view of its importance, taking the letter personally to the FCO. Further, even given the Christmas break, the delay until 30 December was quite inexcusable.

Amendments made.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 15, after the word "inexcusable" to insert the words ", even though five of the seven days were official holidays and one was Christmas Eve."—(Sir Peter Emery.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Another Amendment made.

Paragraph, as amended, agreed to.

Paragraph 51 read, amended and agreed to.

Paragraph 52 read, as follows:

Whatever problems or excuses there may have been in relaying information earlier, Mr Penfold had by 2 February clearly and unequivocally informed management in the FCO that Sandline had a contract to supply arms to President Kabbah. He understandably expressed surprise that he received no response to that minute—and, in particular, no indication that Sandline was engaged in illegal activity. Ms Grant explained this by the fact that she was away at the time, and had thereby lost the opportunity to speak to Mr Penfold directly. Had an immediate and proper response been given to this key minute, subsequent embarrassments could have been avoided. We conclude that Mr Penfold did not pass on crucial information to the FCO during the period 19 December to 30 January in a way which was appropriate, though we note that the fate of his minute of 2 February does not encourage us to believe that the Department would necessarily have reacted appropriately had he done so.

Amendments made.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 13, to leave out the word "necessarily."—(Mr David Wilshire.)

Question, That the Amendment be made, put and negatived.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 14, after the word "so" to insert the words:

"And we cannot be other than critical of the fact that Ms Grant took no action to see that Ministers were made aware of the facts when dealing with a starred question in the Lords, in the case of Baroness Symons and an Adjournment Debate in the Commons in the case of Mr Lloyd."—(Sir Peter Emery.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Paragraph, as amended, agreed to.

Paragraph 53 read, as follows:

WAS MR PENFOLD FREELANCING?


There is some evidence of management concern in London about Mr Penfold's conduct. He was regarded, at least by Mr Murray, as an advocate of the use of force in Sierra Leone. Mr Penfold told us himself that the feeling that force would be needed was commonplace by the beginning of December 1997: "it was the view of people I spoke with in the Foreign Office," he said. He was also reported at an official meeting on 3 December to favour the arming of the Kamajors. By 23 December, Mr Penfold was able to tell Sandline representatives that the use of force was on the cards, though not "yet" an agreed view in the FCO. On 30 January, as we earlier described, Mr Penfold was summoned to meet Ms Grant to answer the accusation that he was advocating the use of force to President Kabbah. Mr Murray's attempted in a minute of 3 February to persuade his managers that Mr Penfold ought to be recalled. This minute inter alia suggested that Mr Penfold had advised President Kabbah to go for a military option involving decisive military action by ECOMOG, backed by mercenaries. The principal recipient of this minute, Mr Dales, noted that "our problem is in getting Mr Penfold....to pursue" official policy. Mr Murray described his subsequent conversation with Mr Dales, who had said that he was aware of the High Commissioner's tendency to freelance, which he thought might be a consequence of his previous service as Governor of the British Virgin Islands.

Amendment proposed, in line 1, to leave out the word "FREELANCING" and to insert the words "OPERATING OUTSIDE GOVERNMENT POLICY."—(Mr David Wilshire.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Other Amendments made.

Paragraph, as amended, agreed to.

Paragraph 54 read, amended and agreed to.

Paragraph 55 read, as follows:

Ms Grant told us that Mr Penfold had argued that President Kabbah had listened to him because of his high regard for him, but that she had told him that "he could not know how President Kabbah was responding and he had to assume and behave as if all his communications, however informal, in whatever difficult circumstances, were in his capacity as British High Commissioner." We believe that Mr Penfold was, in fact, in a very difficult position. It was in the interests of the United Kingdom that he trade within proper limits on his excellent personal relationships with President Kabbah. The Foreign Secretary told us that there was "no criticism" of Mr Penfold on account of the "very close and positive working relationship" he had established with President Kabbah. However, he was remote from London and must have felt a perfectly understandable wish to get on with what he saw as important in the interests of the over-arching British policy aim—restoring President Kabbah and overturning the Junta. He might have felt a natural impatience at quibbles from inexperienced staff in London (there have been five heads of Africa Department (Equatorial) since he became High Commissioner). We note Sir John Kerr's view that the personal relations developed by Heads of Mission are important, but that a degree of control is also important. Like him, we have no wish to see Heads of Mission operating as automata. However, there is no room for alternative or non-official foreign policies being set by officials in the field who may think they know best. The Foreign Secretary was very firm on this. Although the circumstances in West Africa were very difficult, we are inclined to believe that Mr Penfold's actions went beyond government policy. We hope that the Sandline affair will remind Heads of Mission that they act only within the confines of policies set by Ministers.

Amendments made.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 22, to leave out from the word "this" to the end of the paragraph and to insert:

"Mr Penfold was quite clear that the Government's policy was to resolve the Sierra Leone crisis by peaceful means. However he believed that the military Junta was unlikely to relinquish their hold on power peacefully unless faced with a credible threat of the use of force against them. As Mr Penfold has told the Committee, "There is no confusion in my mind over what constituted HMG's policy towards resolving the crisis in Sierra Leone, namely we sought the restoration of the legitimate government by peaceful means. Although the Ecowas 3 prong approach included, as well as dialogue and sanctions, the use of force, I was clear that, whereas we had never publicly ruled out the use of force, for HMG to support the use of force, this would require a ministerial decision and a further UN resolution. In all my dealings with President Kabbah's government and others I made it clear that this was HMG's policy and I did not divert from this. In order to achieve a peaceful restoration, particularly through the implementation of the Conakry Peace Plan, I consistently advised Ministers and officials that the junta had to believe that a credible threat of force existed (i.e. Ecomog) and could be used if they did not adhere to the terms of the Conakry Peace Plan, e.g. in my Annual Review dated December, and my paper "The Way Forward" dated 29 January."[FN: SL48.] We conclude that Mr Penfold's consistent advice that a peaceful restoration of President Kabbah was only likely to be achieved if the Junta faced a credible threat of military force was both realistic and in accord with the British government's policy objective of a peaceful resolution."—(Sir John Stanley.)

Question put, That the Amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

Other Amendments made.

Question put, That the paragraph stand part of the Report.

The Committee divided.

A paragraph—(Sir Peter Emery)—brought up and read, as follows:

It is worth noting that whilst Government policy was to bring about a settlement by peaceful means in Sierra Leone they knew of the positive action of Nigeria, of Nigerian troops and of the ECOMOG Force. Here was a settlement by the use of force. However, we received no evidence that the Government made any approaches to these authorities to desist from the use of force. Nor were any instructions given to Mr Penfold if he came into contact with Nigerians through his close contacts with President Kabbah to request Nigeria to stop or limit their use of force. No evidence was given to us that in pursuing Government policy any approaches were made by AD(E) to bring Nigeria to pursue a policy of obtaining a solution by peaceful means.

Question put, That the paragraph be read a second time.

The Committee divided.

Paragraph 56 read, amended and agreed to.

Paragraphs 57 to 60 read and agreed to.

Paragraph 61 read, amended and agreed to.

A paragraph—(Sir John Stanley)—brought up, read the first and second time, and inserted (now paragraph 62).

Paragraph 62 (now paragraph 63) read, amended and agreed to.

Paragraph 63 (now paragraph 64) read and agreed to.

Paragraph 64 (now paragraph 65) read, amended and agreed to.

Paragraph 65 (now paragraph 66) read and agreed to.

Paragraph 66 read, as follows:

It was not just for the adjournment debates that Ministers were inadequately briefed. There was a considerable traffic of communications between the FCO in London and Mr Penfold in mid to late March seeking information on his contacts with Sandline. None of the information received seems to have been brought to the attention of Ministers. Even more surprisingly, when Mr Lloyd travelled to Sierra Leone, accompanied by Mr Andrews, on 31 March, his briefing material contained nothing on Sandline. This was despite the receipt of an official notification of Customs' investigation the previous day. How such a "massive failure of briefing" occurred was a mystery to Sir John Kerr, though Mr Lloyd, perhaps excessively kindly, explained that his visit was under the auspices of the Commonwealth, who therefore provided his principal briefing. Mr Lloyd for his own part might well have pursued his earlier questions at this stage. Ms Grant told us that Mr Lloyd was informed by her about the Sandline affair on 30 March, but this was done by means of side copies of other documents which were themselves described by Legg as "misleading" and "substantially incomplete." In any case, the documents were not brought to the Minister's personal attention for at least two weeks after they had been sent to his office, another key failure of the FCO. It is the job of the private office to alert Ministers, and we are surprised that this was not done in this case. Our conclusion is that there was an appalling failure of briefing, which we recommend should not be repeated. It is on the basis of briefing that Ministers report to Parliament and, in the words of the Resolution of the House, "it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament." We expect lessons to be learned from the Sandline case in the FCO and in other Departments.

Amendments made.

Another Amendment proposed, in line 26, after the word "Departments." to insert the words "Such lapses must not occur again."—(Sir Peter Emery.)

Question, That the Amendment be made, put and negatived.

Paragraph, as amended, agreed to (now paragraph 67).

Paragraph 67 (now paragraph 68) read and agreed to.

Paragraph 68 read, as follows:

Sir John Kerr has himself accepted responsibility for a number of misjudgements. On 30 March, he received a minute from Mr Murray via Mr Dales which alerted him to Customs' raid on Sandline, and to Sandline's defence that they were acting with the full knowledge of the Government. Mr Murray explained that Sandline had been in touch with the FCO over a period, and that the Department was aware that they were helping the Kamajors with "training and logistics." The minute went on to say—misleadingly—"we were not aware of any shipment of arms." Sir John told us that he may have misread this minute, and that he was certainly misled by it. We regard his response—"Thank you. Please tell Mr Murray on the basis of these papers he has nothing to worry about"—as wholly inadequate.

An Amendment made.