Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting)

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Mullan]

Q In your experience of organisations that have delivered what you might call a duty of candour without this legal sanction, either successfully or unsuccessfully, what are the key culture changes we need to ensure that organisations deliver?

Lord Evans of Weardale: Your use of the word culture strikes me as being very important. We all know that you can have loads and loads of rules, but if you have a culture that says, “Actually, we don’t really mind about that,” they will not necessarily work. Therefore, ensuring that an organisation is actually educated in its ethical responsibilities seems to me to be critical.

I know from the time that I was in the Security Service that quite a lot of work was done on this, and I believe that the same now applies in the other intelligence agencies. Any intelligence service has the potential to abuse the powers entrusted to it by Parliament or Government, and it is very important that there are constraints on that; part of that is people understanding their ethical responsibilities and the fact that there are really effective speak-up channels, so that, if somebody has a concern, it can be voiced safely and people feel they have permission to raise concerns.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, Lord Evans, for your support of a Hillsborough law. We heard clear evidence this morning about the Manchester Arena bombing, and we are going to hear later on from a BBC reporter that the Security Service is not immune from the problems that the Bill has been created to address. My question is, if the Security Service has to go before an inquiry, why should they be treated any differently from a police officer? Surely, it should be the actual agent who answers the questions, and not the corporate body. We saw clear differences in Manchester, where many agents were summoned to give evidence, from what the corporate body was saying. As you outlined, we have to remember what this is about: it is about getting to the truth to give justice and accountability. My fear, as things stand, is that that will not happen with the security services.

Lord Evans of Weardale: I understand why you have that concern. As is often the case in these difficult cases, we have two competing public goods. As a country, we benefit from having an intelligence community that can keep us safe; we need to protect that and ensure, therefore, that the agency is not hampered in doing its job. In my previous answer, I tried to explain why I would have, and continue to have, concerns about that being done on a bilateral, immediate basis, without the agency itself being aware of the disclosure. That could be one model, but I do not think it is the right way to do it.

Of the three agencies, I am most familiar with MI5. How accountability works there is that individual agents, as you put it—officers, we would say—do give evidence. If you look at the courts, even though not all the material can be presented in open court, closed material procedures are in place in the courts.

[Ian Byrne]

Should they be under a duty of candour, with criminal sanctions?

[The Chair]

Order. Ian, come back with another question if you wish to, but let the witness finish.

Lord Evans of Weardale: Individual officers do give evidence. If you look, for example, at what is being done at the moment in respect of the case that you will be hearing about later—the Agent X case, as I think it is known—it is being investigated by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which has been completely clear that the service has a duty of candour in that context. I do not believe that the agency is trying to avoid frank and open accountability; I believe that it is trying to square that with the other constraints under which it operates, because of the sensitive nature of almost all the operation information that the service is using.

That is the dilemma, but I recognise that it is a dilemma. You can take different views, but I think you have to give due weight to ensuring safeguarding—not safeguarding the service because of reputation; we should not have a law that does that. What we need is a law that enables the full story to be disclosed, but in a way that allows the agencies to continue to undertake their public functions, and that is compatible with the other legal constraints with which members of the services operate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Byrne]

Q Lord Evans, would you accept that the Bill requires no additional disclosure beyond what is already required, and that it is actually about whether the information supplied is true? Therefore, it poses no extra risk to national security; it is just about the truth of the information that is supplied.

Lord Evans of Weardale: I do not think the Bill, as presented, poses a threat to national security. May I say one thing about chapter 2?

[The Chair]

Regrettably, we have one minute tops.

Lord Evans of Weardale: Chapter 2 requires public authorities to promote and maintain ethical standards as a statutory requirement, which I think is a really significant development. When I was chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, we did a report that looked at best practice within public agencies on ethical issues. There are many bits of the public service where there is virtually no induction into the ethical requirements of the job, and no serious leadership on these issues by the leaders of those organisations. In my view, and the view of the CSPL, that is a very big gap. I strongly welcome putting a duty on those who lead public organisations to promote and maintain the ethical health of those organisations, not just the delivery of whatever their role is. That is an important element of this and I welcome it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas McAllister]

Yes, it does. Thank you.

Richard Miller: I will add one point on the costs aspect. Firms will not be given a blank cheque here; they know that when they submit their bill of costs to the Legal Aid Agency, it will be very closely scrutinised. Any costs that the Legal Aid Agency considers were not necessarily and reasonably incurred will be disallowed, and firms know they will be subject to that level of scrutiny when they undertake work, so they are, by definition, very cautious about what work they do. They do not want to do a whole load of work that they are not going to get paid for, so there is a very significant control of the costs from that assessment by the Legal Aid Agency.

Over time, one of the things we will be able to learn is what sort of costs should be expected for this work, and once we know what the norms are, it may be possible to move to a system where there are stages or caps where people know, “This is the expected level of costs for that. If you’re going to exceed that, maybe you would need to get specific authority”, but we do not have that information at the outset. That will be something to develop in a number of years, once the evidence comes through.

[Ian Byrne]

Q It is good to hear evidence from both of you, Chris and Richard, and I echo that the legal aid element of the Bill is great news. I am a bit concerned about some of the mood music around scaling up for the parity of arms, because that was needed yesterday. From the evidence we have heard and our experiences, we know that is so important. It is such a crucial part of what we are trying to achieve here on accountability and justice for victims.

In a world where the Bill is passed into legislation in May, what would the timescale be for scaling up so we have parity of arms at inquests? What would be the timescale, and what would you need? I would like that on record.

Richard Miller: First, we need to get the structure for the legal aid administration resolved, and we need to have discussions with the Ministry and the Legal Aid Agency about what training is required, what can be provided and how quickly it can be developed. It might potentially be helpful if a plan could be published that sets out, “This is the plan for meeting the capacity requirements here”, and on which we and the Government and perhaps the Legal Aid Agency could all say, “Yep, we agree that is the route forward. That is the road map. Those are the milestones and timelines that we think we will need for it.” I do not think we are in a position today to be able to say, “Yep, this is the time that is required”, but I do not think it would take too much work to develop a plan that would help us understand what would be required and how quickly we could get there.

Chris Minnoch: I have some minor points to add. We will need an amendment to the Bill to fix those structural issues. The Bill, as currently drafted, is based on the existing funding model, which does not support sustainability and creates unnecessary complexity in the system. The way in which the funding mechanism works does not enable it to be completed in the same way as other areas of civil legal aid. The earlier those amendments are made and the Bill receives Royal Assent, the earlier current practitioners can make a conscious business decision to say, “Yes, this is an area in which we can take on more staff and start training them up, or divert resources from other areas into inquest work.”

One of our concerns is that this might mean that lawyers take on a higher proportion of inquest cases than they currently do, and one of the things I would like to see the Ministry of Justice actively thinking about is how you put mechanisms in place that support lawyers to do such complex and potentially harrowing cases. I think that is partly an issue for the Ministry of Justice, and partly an issue for the legal sector. The legal aid sector is not particularly good at looking after itself, given the nature of the cases it does. That is as much about having an adequate fee scheme and having the right levels of training and supervision in place to do that.

[Maria Eagle]

Q It is very interesting to hear the evidence you have both given. I am interested in not only the parity of arms but the concept of a public authority’s legal representation being necessary and proportionate. We have heard a lot of evidence that those with unlimited public funds at their disposal tend to think that what is necessary and proportionate is a very large legal team. Obviously, inquests are not supposed to be adversarial—we know that, in some instances, they become adversarial. What do you think is necessary and proportionate from the point of view of a public authority? One way of getting parity of arms is to cut down the number of lawyers that public authorities are paying to attend inquests.

Chris Minnoch: I have some initial thoughts. I have to say that I am speaking only on behalf of the lawyers who represent bereaved families; I cannot speak for lawyers who represent public authorities—I have no experience of that. We have already heard evidence today that the critical aspects of the Bill are those that will change the culture within public authorities. That is not going to happen overnight, because it is a cultural shift that is required, which will take some time, and because there are consequences for the individuals involved in those public authorities, based on what could come out of it.

What we want the legal aid provisions to do, including on parity of arms, is assist those broader duties to take place. I do not think that it is going to happen from day one, and nor does any lawyer I have spoken to who does inquest work. I do not think an inquest that takes place the day after the Bill receives Royal Assent will be an open and transparent process, as the Bill anticipates. For me, one of the key aspects of the legal aid elements is the ability of the lawyers, not just when the proceedings commence, but in the conduct of the parties leading up to the inquest, including the disclosure elements and the openness and willingness to reveal information to the bereaved family’s lawyers—that is the critical part for me to begin with.

The family’s lawyers can then assist the coroner in making an assessment of the conduct, and I think it is the conduct of the public authority that is key, when you are thinking about parity of arms. I made the point earlier that I do not think the bereaved family is going to be overly concerned about the number of lawyers on the other side, if those lawyers are actively assisting the inquest. If they are not, it is a much bigger issue.

Richard Miller: I think there are a couple of measures in the Bill that helpfully come together to try to encourage greater parity, including the duty of candour and the fact that the Ministry responsible for the public body is going to be asked to meet the legal costs of the bereaved family. They come together to put an onus on the public body and the Ministry responsible for it to be proportionate. If they create a situation where they are requiring the bereaved family’s lawyer to undertake a lot more work, they will ultimately have to meet the costs.

As Mr Minnoch says, it is not going to happen overnight; it is going to be a change that has effect over a number of years. But these are, I think, useful nudge factors in the right direction to get to the level of parity that we are trying to achieve here—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

Q Do you think we need another body to do the job of following up on PFDs specifically?

Professor Fowler: No, I do not think we do.

[Ian Byrne]

Q Dr Chopra, you have talked a lot about cultural change and how we effect that. Do you agree that the ineffectiveness of the duty of candour in the NHS is due to the fact that it applies to the organisation and not the command?

Dr Chopra: Can you say a little more?

[Ian Byrne]

The duty of candour applies to the organisation, not to the individual—in other words, the chief executive. Do you feel that is where it loses its power and does not permeate through the organisation?

Dr Chopra: I described an incident where an individual said, “Well, if the organisational duty of candour is not triggered, I have my professional duty of candour as a mechanism to raise concerns.” Building on that, I agree that it is probably important to locate the duty with an individual as well as an organisation. We have it for professionals and, although many chief executives come from health backgrounds, I think it would be helpful for managers to have that duty on them, which is one of the things the Bill supports.

[Ian Byrne]

Q I sat in an inquest open day, and we touched on the Lampard statutory public inquiry into the deaths of mental health patients in Essex. That started off as an independent review, but due to the lack of candour and co-operation of staff and senior management, it had to be converted to a statutory inquiry to compel evidence and witnesses. How are we going to use what we are talking about today to enhance the ability to change that culture? How is the NHS going to do that? We do not want a repeat of that.

Professor Fowler: I think what is written into this Bill is to try to encourage exactly that with non-statutory inquiries: to bring them up to the same level as a statutory inquiry, to some degree. There is a great deal of detail around the Lampard inquiry—it has grown to a very large extent, and the amount of information required is quite large for that particular organisation—but I could not comment in particular on why individuals did not want to step forward in that circumstance.

[The Chair]

Order. Regrettably—I am terribly regretful today—that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for their evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Nathan Sparkes, Jacqui Hames, Flora Page, James Killen and Ron Warmington gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tessa Munt]

You have already referred to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, the fact that that puts whistleblowing into the framework of an employment law issue, and the fact that it does not protect against retaliation. The focus then is on a whistleblower proving that they are deliberately being acted against, as opposed to on the wrongdoing done by the organisation in the first place; when they come out of the employment tribunal, they are then very often blacklisted and cannot work again.

Do you feel that the Bill provides enough anti-corruption effort to ensure that, in particular, we could have prevented the Post Office scandal? As I understand it, 47,000 cases are waiting in the employment tribunal at the moment—that is the current backlog. Once this legislation comes into play, my sense is that that 47,000 will escalate beyond belief, but I will leave that with you. Does the Bill go some way to sorting this out?

James Killen: The short answer is no. What strikes me most in the Bill is that it makes the duty of candour an individual thing, and focuses very much on the corruption that goes on at the level of the chief execs. In my mind, and certainly having listened to the health people earlier, the majority of duty holders will be people who are on the minimum wage and potentially part time—what I would class as vulnerable duty holders. Those people are going to be placed in the situation of having to choose between a potential criminal sanction for not exercising their duty of candour and speaking out against a corrupt boss who will potentially pull all the levers they have in the business to destroy their career. They are going to choose between their careers and families or a potential criminal sanction.

For me, the largest omission in this Bill is that there is no form of criminal sanction for interfering in another person’s duty of candour. Culture and so on was talked about a lot earlier, and there is something there—I agree with everything that has been said about the idea of an office for the whistleblower, because I think that would take all of this away, but, if we are speaking about maybe a 60% or 80% solution, some sort of clause in the Bill that gives a criminal sanction to other people within an organisation for interfering with somebody else’s duty would be key.

[Ian Byrne]

Q We are here today for the journey of legislation to stop the culture of state cover-ups in this country. Certainly at the heart of the state cover-up of Hillsborough was the media and the role it played. There was a hugely powerful headline in The Sun by the dreaded Kelvin Mackenzie—“The Truth”—which resonated around the world, shaped the narrative and did so much damage to our ability to get truth, justice and accountability. I have a simple question for Nathan and Jacqui: are there any areas you would both like the Bill to go further with, and if so, where?

Nathan Sparkes: As you point out, there was a phenomenon of police officers briefing The Sun newspaper after the Hillsborough disaster, which was a huge part of the cover-up. Police officers were not the only public officials involved in that; the local MP was, and there is a disputed allegation that a representative of the Thatcher Government was as well. There was a huge amount of public official impropriety in that media cover-up operation. Unfortunately, that is not the only case; after Orgreave, similarly, there was a cover-up perpetrated between public officials and the media.

The history of the phone hacking scandal is a 15 to 20-year series of occasions where overwhelming evidence of criminal activity being carried out on behalf of News UK was presented to the Metropolitan police force, and every time it failed to properly investigate until it absolutely had to. That was during a period where a succession of Metropolitan Commissioners enjoyed excessively close relationships with News UK; it included a time where even an editor for News UK was hired by the Met, and there were records of eight dinners between heads of the Met and News UK editors over that period.

In more recent years, there are allegations that police fed information about the victims of the Manchester bombing to the media. Christine Flack, the mother of the late television presenter Caroline Flack, believes that police were briefing the media in relation to her case. Mazher Mahmood was a News UK reporter, and there is an allegation in a recently published book that the Met protected him from prosecution and exposure during the noughties on account of the closeness of that relationship.

I could give many more examples—I will not sit down and list them all—but the point is that there is a specific and persistent issue with corrupt relationships between public officials and the media. Our concern about this Bill is that it does not have anything substantive to address that. The long title of the Bill is very clear; it will

“require public authorities to promote and take steps to maintain ethical conduct within all parts of the authority”.

Our submission your Committee is that the Bill cannot achieve that unless it also addresses the specific phenomenon of corrupt relationships. Our proposal is that the best way of dealing of that is with a public inquiry.

[Mr Morrison]

Q I have a follow-up to Ian’s question. The new offence of misleading of the public would not apply

“for the purposes of journalism.”

That is the wording in the Bill. As has been so rightly pointed out, we know there has been a history of public officials who have been using the media in lead-ups to inquiries and so on. Critics, to a point of view that I might have, would say that any kind of stamping down or work on that would be an attack on freedom of speech. What would you say to that?

Nathan Sparkes: In a lot of legislation there are special exemptions for journalism, and often that is justified, but I think it is for the Government to justify that exemption when they bring forward legislation. I do not think it can be justified in this case.

Looking at that offence, there is a six-part test for it to apply. The person must have departed significantly from the expectations of their role, they must have caused harm to someone, they must have been responsible for significant or reputed dishonesty, it must be about a matter of significant concern to the public, it must be seriously improper, and they ought to know that it was seriously improper. That is an incredibly high threshold, and rightly so, but it is inconceivable that there is any legitimate journalistic activity that would satisfy the remarkably high threshold of all six tests that we would want to protect. On that basis, we do not think it is appropriate. The challenge for the Government is whether they could identify a circumstance in which any journalistic activity that would be in breach of those would be legitimate. I do not think they can; I think that is inconceivable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Powell]

Q We heard earlier today about the failure of a local authority: the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the Grenfell case. In the brief time that we have, I am interested in how you will both seek to enforce this, if it is on the statute book, in your combined authorities and the local authorities under you, or those that you work collectively with. Do you need anything else included in the Bill? Do you have thoughts already about how you will set up enforcement and monitoring to make sure that it drives the culture change that Steve just talked about?

Andy Burnham: We want to see a change, as advocated by Hillsborough Law Now, with respect to command responsibility, so that the responsibility is not just corporate but individual. Obviously, the Hillsborough story is the failure to go that last bit of the journey towards individual accountability, which I think bedevils the British state still. In all the examples—Grenfell being a primary one, as well as Hillsborough and the Post Office scandal—where is the individual accountability? We would very much endorse what was said to you by Hillsborough Law Now. It is not about a chief executive or chief constable not knowing what is going on underneath; when there is a corporate cover-up, there has to be some individual accountability for that.

It pains Steve and me that we were never able to achieve that in the Hillsborough example. With the Taylor report, the reason the trial of the criminal cover-up collapsed was because those officers gave their false police statements to Taylor, and Taylor was not an inquiry covered by the oath. That is why the courts said that their evidence could not be admitted, and therefore they were allowed to lie and faced no accountability. We would both say that the command responsibility is really important here. We need to start holding people individually to account for the appalling things they subject people to on occasions.

Steve Rotheram: It needs to be strengthened, that’s for sure. That is to ensure that chief officers, chief executives or chief constables—whoever they might be—are personally accountable for crimes. If the Bill ensures that the responsibility sits with those at the top, and those best-placed to effect change, I am fairly certain that they will not want to be that person who is held responsible, and therefore they will change the culture within those organisations.

[Ian Byrne]

I won’t mention the football, Steve.

Andy Burnham: Please do. Let’s use our last six minutes on it.

[Ian Byrne]

Q As you have outlined, and as has been said lots today, this is the legacy: this is what we have all been fighting for, and what you have fought for, for a long time. Andy, you alluded to what you feel needs to be in the legislation, but I want you and Steve—you touched on it being 80%—to put on record your support for the amendments and what you feel needs to happen for this to be the legacy that you envisaged a decade ago, given all the fighting to get to where we are today. It is important that we have on the record, from the pair of you, what you expect to be in the legislation.

Steve Rotheram: First, I talked before about the responsibility sitting with you. There cannot be any diminution of the substance of what is already going through the system, but you can use this Committee phase to ensure that we tighten up some of the things that we were unable to get during the negotiations, which ensured that we at least had a Bill to put before Parliament. That is the first thing.

The second thing is that we need to ensure that the main planks—the ones that Andy was talking about before—remain at the forefront of everything that we do. It is about those protections. As you said, this is of course the legacy for the 97. All the families I have spoken with are absolutely delighted at the way in which the parliamentary process has gone so far. Pete Weatherby has done a brilliant job for us. If you listen to anybody, you need to listen to people like Pete Weatherby, and others, who have been on this from day one. They know all the caveats that need to be included so that we do not have wriggle room for occasions in the future when tragedies might occur and people try to get away with it.

Ian, you talked about this earlier. I would love the Bill to be able to ban things like The Sun, following its unconscionable and scurrilous lie, which within days of the tragedy set the false narrative. I know that Leveson 2 is not part of the scope of this Committee, but we need to clamp down on those things and stop them happening in the first place. The untold damage that things like that have done to reputations and to people—the falsehoods are still believed by some people 36 years later—is unfathomable to me.

Andy Burnham: I endorse what Steve just said and the evidence given to you earlier by Nathan Sparkes. Leveson 2 is part of the Hillsborough story, and we believe that it is needed to have the full story.

There is one area that I have not touched on today, but which we need to talk about: the exemption for the security services that we are told is, in effect, in place. That was not the case with my 2017 Bill. That is relevant to us here in Manchester: a false narrative was given by the security services, by MI5, to the Manchester Arena inquiry, and it was subsequently exposed only by the evidence of individual officers. This is not about material going into the public domain that should not. Obviously, there is a proper exemption for some things going into the public domain, but where things do go into the public domain, they should be accurate and truthful.

We have seen the BBC being given false information by the same organisation, so I do not see that the security services can be exempt. In some of the issues in this country that still need further work—the Shrewsbury 24 would be one example—there was definitely the involvement of the security services, domestically, against people. Are we saying that that should be exempt and should not be part of this? What about Orgreave? I do not know the full extent of their involvement there, but certainly the forthcoming Orgreave inquiry should not have that cut off in any way, shape or form. That is something that needs to be addressed in a proper way. No one is calling for things to be put into the public domain that should not, or that would compromise the country or our safety in any way. However, where things are being said, they have to be truthful. I do not think the Security Service gets an opt-out on that, as they seem to think they should have. That would be my final statement.

As I think Steve was indicating, can I thank the Committee? You seem to us to be doing exactly the job we would hope you would do. We congratulate the Government on introducing this legislation in the current state it is in; it is obviously substantially meeting the tests of my Bill, as I have said. But let us not leave loopholes, grey areas or overly high hurdles that can be exploited—that has damaged public trust in the authorities of this country. This Bill should leave no doubt whatsoever about what should be expected in the future and should back people, from the off, to get truth, justice and accountability.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much, Andy and Steve, for your evidence. That ends this oral evidence session.

Steve Rotheram: Up the reds!

Examination of Witness

Daniel De Simone gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seamus Logan]

It is hard to describe a particular example, but in a way that might prevent a whistleblower from taking necessary action.

Daniel De Simone: I think so, yes. Journalists have been arrested under the Official Secrets Act. I am a journalist who has worked in the area of security and matters to do with terrorism, so I am familiar with there being a risk to journalists with official secrets. Someone might tell you something that puts themselves at risk, or they might put you at risk. In practice we see very few prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act—we do not see many of them now—so this is not something that is happening all the time, but there is a risk.

There is obviously a balance, because security and intelligence agencies do not want to feel that anyone who works there can just go off and reveal things that they think are very sensitive, but equally it is also true that there can be things that are wrong within those organisations, and there is not always an obvious place for someone to go if they feel like that. There is often a big risk to that person for doing that. So yes, it can be too much.

[Ian Byrne]

Q Thanks, Daniel—it has been a fascinating evidence session so far. You have a lot of personal experience with MI5 over the last couple of years. Do you genuinely believe that the provisions of the Bill, as drafted, will drive the cultural change that we feel we need?

Daniel De Simone: For MI5? No, I do not think so. Look at what the head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, has said. He said in a speech last month that there are particular responsibilities on MI5 as a secret agency to comply with oversight and be as transparent as it can with these sorts of things. He was talking with reference particularly to the fact that MI5 was found to have given false evidence in our case. So strong words are clearly being said.

The trouble we have in our case is that when we showed that there was false evidence, and they accepted that, the third in command of MI5—the director general, strategy—then came along and gave an account to the court that the court, the Lady Chief Justice, the president of the King’s bench division and the head of the administrative court now say was not an accurate reflection of the closed material. That happened after they said they were going to be very transparent with the court. They really had to be dragged to the point they are now in, where there is an investigation that the court—the High Court and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal—required. That is being carried out under the auspices of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. His organisation was also misled.

In our case, every kind of judicial body charged with holding MI5 to account, or its regulator, has been given false evidence. That is an issue, and it calls into question issues around a duty of candour. Lord Evans said in his evidence earlier that there is already a duty of candour responsibility on MI5 and the Government in the courts, and that is true. In our case, they have admitted that they did not meet that test. It is there; the issue is that it is not always being complied with. As I understand it, the point of the Bill is to strengthen that duty and enforce it. That seems to be why it is there.

[Ian Byrne]

Q That goes to the heart of the Bill. What you have just outlined is exactly why we need that enforced duty of candour. Obviously, that is not just about an individual; you are talking about a culture that needs changing.

Daniel De Simone: Yes. We had corporate witnesses, senior officers and the third in command of MI5, and we had Ken McCallum himself saying they were going to get to the bottom of what happened, but they did not get to the bottom of what happened, and the evidence they presented to the court did not reflect the closed material. When the judge made them hand over the closed material, the judge was very unhappy and made it obvious that they had not given a full and honest account. We now have the investigation that is going to look at whether they lied, as we have said, and whether there should therefore be contempt of court processes. That investigation is happening at the moment.

[The Chair]

We have about three minutes left.