Mr George Galloway

24 February 2005

Ms Alda Barry, the Registrar of Members Interests, was also present.

Q267  Sir Philip Mawer: I guess both of us are relieved to get to this point given—

Mr Galloway:—the prolonged correspondence.

Q268  Sir Philip Mawer:—the prolonged correspondence and the long delay imposed by the legal proceedings. I sent you a letter which you will have received before the meeting, I hope?

Mr Galloway: Yes, I got it yesterday.

Q269  Sir Philip Mawer:—sketching out the areas that I had hoped we could cover. I realise that a good deal of it will be repetitive as far as you are concerned but I hope you will understand that my inquiry is distinct in its own right, and although obviously I make reference to other documents and so on which are available to me, I want the record here to be reasonably self­contained and therefore I want you to get your story on the record with me, so it may involve some repetition for you.

Mr Galloway: Okay.

Q270  Sir Philip Mawer: That is the Andrew Yale complaint[14] [same handed] which you have just been handed a copy of—

Mr Galloway: Does that really count as a complaint? It is like a poison pen letter, it is like something you would chalk up on a toilet wall.

Q271  Sir Philip Mawer: I do not think it is a poison pen letter. I felt obliged to regard it as a complaint not least because it arrived shortly after or around the same time as the one from Mr Robathan[15] and I thought that I should make both of them available to you.

Mr Galloway: I am sorry to raise a querulous note right at the beginning but "Mr Galloway has not been open about travel, hotel expenses and put up blocks in the way of Parliament"; is that really worthy of your consideration?

Q272  Sir Philip Mawer: What he is saying, is he not, is that he believes it is my job. He goes on, Parliament's reputation is being hurt and the truth is I think that is—

Mr Galloway:—I want to formally record my view that that is beneath the dignity of both your office and mine to reply to. We have got substantive issues to discuss but I just want to make that clear.

Q273  Sir Philip Mawer: Exactly, it is the substantive issues that are the important thing and I took Mr Yale's letter to refer to those, but your comments are certainly noted for the record.

Mr Galloway: Any Member of Parliament could have a letter like that written about them on any day of the week.

Q274  Sir Philip Mawer: Clearly on its own it would not suffice but against the background of the other material, and it is that material that we are here to discuss.

Mr Galloway: Sure.

Q275  Sir Philip Mawer: My object, as I said a moment ago, is to try to get at the truth of what happened and in that context I want to make clear to you that you have used in correspondence a number of times the phrase that you are "required to prove your innocence." That is not so. What you are required to do is to give me a full and frank account of the facts relating to the matters alleged in relation to the Daily Telegraph articles,[16] and to do so frankly in order to enable me to reach some kind of judgment on the veracity or otherwise of the allegations that have been made against you. You are certainly not required to prove your innocence. We will of course make sure that you are shown the transcript of today's conversation in draft and you will have an opportunity therefore to check it for accuracy. Are there any queries you want to raise about process or are you happy to get into the substance?

Mr Galloway: I would like to make a couple of comments about process, if I may. I did several times in correspondence state, and I maintain, that there is an element of my being asked to prove my innocence because this complaint is based upon the Daily Telegraph articles. The Daily Telegraph themselves did not contend that the articles were true. They did not produce any evidence that the articles were true and they were resoundingly thrashed judicially by the Judge in the High Court. Now I am asked, if you will allow me to put it this way, to go through all this again, and I find that very hard to bear. My second point about process is more historic and I have also referred to this in correspondence. I have been across this course before. I have no confidence in this system that we have and I have never had any even before I myself was a victim of it. The idea that a politicised tribunal comprising Members of Parliament of different political parties can reach judgments fairly about the conduct of each other seems to me wholly implausible, either for one reason or another. Either because they will be too chummy and too club­like and will not properly judge their own or where the Member of Parliament is an unpopular one, they will express themselves in a way which cannot be separated from their political bias. I myself have been a victim of this. I was the subject of a previous complaint [17]which was deliberately kept in play by the political majority on the Committee because it balanced, they thought—and I have since spoken to members of the Committee and I am telling you candidly what they told me—proceedings that were being taken against Mr Neil Hamilton and others at the same time and the members of the then majority wanted to keep a Labour Member of Parliament in the frame at the same time. The complaint was thrown out but it lasted a year. I am absolutely clear in my mind that as a one­person parliamentary band involved in a very high profile general election constituency campaign in a matter of weeks from now that the people to decide whether or not an inquiry is kept going about me should not be political opponents; and they are. My political opponents are sitting in judgment on me in this system and I have no confidence in it. I have deliberately not looked at the membership of your Committee. I swear to you. I know that George Young is the Chairman but I do not know any other member of the Committee so I am not making any personal reference to any individual member. It is the system that I think is deeply flawed and the Whips have already been caught red­handed in the past being involved in guiding members of your Committee in how to conduct themselves, on both sides of the political divide. Labour Whips and Conservative Whips were caught red­handed in politicking around this Committee and the way that it does its business. Lastly, this is the first time I have ever met you and I have no axe to grind with you at all, but I do know what happened to your predecessor when she displeased the political majority that ran the Committee and I think that is a third reason, another reason, why the system that Parliament has of investigating complaints against Members of Parliament is deeply flawed. It is politicised and it is deeply flawed. These are my views. I have expressed them to you in many different ways in correspondence and it is only fair I do so now verbally.

Q276  Sir Philip Mawer: You are entitled to your view. All I want to say in response is this: firstly, that I am my own man and I respond to no political impetus or pressure one way or the other. Secondly, as regards the Committee, its members will no doubt note your remarks. The system has of course changed and been strengthened in a number of respects since the earlier experience that you referred to. For example, the membership of the Committee is now evenly balanced between Government and opposition. Thirdly, there is one point I really do need to respond to and that is the first point you made in relation to the Daily Telegraph and your concern that you are being subjected to yet another inquiry into these matters following the libel action. Two points about the libel action. One, my understanding of the Daily Telegraph's defence in that action was that they did not seek to justify publication on the grounds of the accuracy of the documents and similarly the judge in his judgment, which I have read and you have heard, made very clear that his judgment did not relate to the truth or otherwise of the allegations in the documents; it was to do very much with the way in which the Daily Telegraph had conducted itself and specifically in relation to its obligations in relation to you and the law of libel. It was very much to do with the way in which the Telegraph published the information. So the truth or otherwise of the material in the documents discovered by the Daily Telegraph was not addressed by the libel action and was certainly not settled by the judgment and the judge made that very clear at the time. That is why it is the facts, it is the truth or otherwise of the issues which I am concerned about. The libel action dealt with the libel aspects.

Mr Galloway: I do not accept that. It was open to the Telegraph to produce evidence about the veracity of the material in the documents and they did not do so. If they had been able to do, believe me, they would have done so. I think anyone could see that. If they had any evidence that the material in these documents[18]—and we will come back to the documents many times in the discussion—was accurate ("true" is the word I prefer to use) then they would have brought it forward. They did not because they could not because they have not. They have not published or brought forward in any judicial proceedings any evidence that what was in these documents was true. In the absence of that and in the absence of Mr Andrew Yale or Mr Andrew Robathan producing any evidence, my view is that you should throw this question out. Until someone brings you evidence that what was written on a piece of paper has some validity, has some truth, you should not be investigating it. That is my point of view. There is no point in us bogging each other down on this. In relation to the other points that you raise I really must make this point—and I have done it in writing—everything that you have done in relation to this case has been leaked to the media and I am presuming by members of your Committee because I would not impugn the integrity of your staff and I am not impugning your integrity. I am not assuming that you leaked it or your staff leaked it but everything has been leaked to the media, which is precisely the politicisation, the politicking that I am referring to. You cannot dispute that. I was informed of the very existence of this investigation via a telephone call from the BBC while you were still in the corridor walking back from Parliament back to your office so it cannot be gainsaid that this has been politicised, presumably by members of your Committee. I have got no confidence that they are going to lose that habit seven weeks or so before a general election. So that is my tuppence worth.

Q277  Sir Philip Mawer: You have got that on the record. I can assure you that there is no question and you have accepted I think—

Mr Galloway:—I do.

Q278  Sir Philip Mawer:—there is no question of this office having leaked any of these matters.

Mr Galloway: I accept that absolutely.

Q279  Sir Philip Mawer: On the Telegraph libel action we will have to agree to differ because I think on my side of the equation I have the Judge in the sense of his understanding through his judgment of the impact.

Mr Galloway: It is not my reading of the judgment, but anyway. You did want to know about the appeal.

15   Volume II, WE 2. Back

16   Volume II, WE 1 and 4-8. Back

17   Committee on Standards and Privileges, Second Report of Session 1997-98, HC 179. Back

18   Volume II, WE 1 and 4-8. Back