HOLYROOD INQUIRY [TRANSCRIPT]

 

Friday 14 November 2003 (Morning Session)

 

Rt Hon The Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC opened the hearing at 10.00 am.

 

1.      Mr Campbell QC:  Sir, good morning.  Sir, the first witness for the Inquiry today is Mr John Anthony Andrew.  Mr Andrew, good morning and thank you very much for coming back to the Inquiry.  I am sorry that we had to reschedule your evidence.  You have kindly provided a precognition; can you —

 

2.      Mr David Stewart (Solicitor for Mr Andrew):  If I could just intervene very briefly.  I appear with Mr Andrew, but I do not anticipate intervening.

 

3.      Lord Fraser:  Thank you, Mr Stewart.

 

4.      Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Andrew, can you confirm that you are John Anthony Andrew and you are presently the Chief Estates Adviser and Head of the Land and Property Division in the Scottish Executive.

 

5.      Mr Anthony Andrew (Chief Estates Adviser, Scottish Executive):  Yes, I am.

 

6.      Mr Campbell QC:  Previous to taking up this post, you were Chief Estates Officer and Head of the Land and Property Division in the former Scottish Office.

 

7.      Mr Andrew:  I was.

 

8.      Mr Campbell QC:  Can I understand that those two posts are more or less equivalent, although with a different title?

 

9.      Mr Andrew:  The title was just changed for clarity; it is the same job.

 

10.  Mr Campbell QC:  It is the same job.  You have a BA in Economics and Land Economy from Cambridge and you are a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

 

11.  Mr Andrew:  I am.

 

12.  Mr Campbell QC:  Would you tell me something, please, about the range of tasks for which you are responsible in this senior post as Chief Estates Adviser?

 

13.  Mr Andrew:  The Land and Property Division performs the informed-client function in the Scottish Executive.  We are a very small unit, the first port of call for advice on matters of commercial property including acquisitions, disposals, lettings, valuations and the usual run of commercial property work.  We then work through external consultants for implementation.

 

14.  Mr Campbell QC:  Is your role to give the sort of professional advice that one would get from commercial estate agents and chartered surveyors, or simply to direct the client Departments to that advice?

 

15.  Mr Andrew:  Being a small, five-surveyor unit, we cannot replicate the expertise in the private sector, so it is our job, really, to understand the market and understand where that expertise can be procured.

 

16.  Mr Campbell QC:  So, rather like Mr Wyllie, you are not — and I intend no impertinence — a hands-on agency surveyor in the same way as we can see any of the signboards in Edinburgh and George Street today.  I am not going to go into names, but that is not really your task.

 

17.  Mr Andrew:  No, we are not hands-on surveyors.

 

18.  Mr Campbell QC:  Nevertheless, do you consider that you have — or you and your team have — a good working knowledge of the Scottish property market?

 

19.  Mr Andrew:  We have a reasonable general knowledge of the market.  If very specific advice is required, we go out and acquire it.

 

20.  Mr Campbell QC:  It would be difficult for you to be acquainted with values from Wick to Stranraer, or from the Butt of Lewis to —

 

21.  Mr Andrew:  We cannot cover the whole of Scotland’s geography; neither can we cover all the market sectors properly.

 

22.  Mr Campbell QC:  But you know where to find the advice?

 

23.  Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

24.  Mr Campbell QC:  And, in describing yourselves as the “first port of call”, the first port of call for whom?

 

25.  Mr Andrew:  Senior Scottish Executive officials who require commercial property advice.

 

26.  Mr Campbell QC:  And is that across a range of Departments or only some Departments?

 

27.  Mr Andrew:  All Scottish Executive Departments and all Scottish Executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies can seek our advice if they wish.

 

28.  Mr Campbell QC:  So, if we take an example, if Historic Scotland is looking for new premises, would you be one of the people they would come to?

 

29.  Mr Andrew:  My Division helped them acquire Longmore House.

 

30.  Mr Campbell QC:  But suppose they were looking for a — let us take something much more trivial — a custodian’s house in south Ayrshire for a monument that is open to the public; would you be involved at that sort of level?

 

31.  Mr Andrew:  We might, but that would be the sort of work we would probably put out to the private sector.

 

32.  Mr Campbell QC:  How is your Department budgeted?

 

33.  Mr Andrew:  Our budget is 90-something per cent salaries.  We have hardly any budget for paying consultants.  That cost is almost always, with one exception, borne by the Department that is seeking the advice.

 

34.  Mr Campbell QC:  So if you send work out to XY estate agents, the client Department pays, essentially?

 

35.  Mr Andrew:  Yes, and the contractual relationship is between the client Department and the surveyor.  We stand right back.

 

36.  Mr Campbell QC:  You stand back from it.  Right, well, that is helpful.  Could you look at SE/2/005, which will appear on the screen in a moment?

 

37.  This is only peripherally connected with the precognition which you have given us, but we can see that this is a letter to Dr Gibbons from an organisation called PACE, which is an acronym for Property Advisers to the Civil Estate, with an address in Thistle Street, so not in Victoria Quay or St Andrew’s House.  We have heard a little bit about PACE, but only a little bit.  Can you distinguish for the Inquiry, please, between the functions of your Department and the functions of PACE?

 

38.  Mr Andrew:  Yes.  In the early 1990s, PACE looked after all Government property called the Civil Estate, so they were responsible for managing all offices.  In the early 1980s, the Government devolved each Department’s properties to the Department itself.  At that point, the Scottish Executive took a decision to decouple from PACE and the work was to be done in-house by the Accommodation Division, but advised professionally by Land and Property Division.

 

39.  Mr Campbell QC:  That being your Division?

 

40.  Mr Andrew:  Yes, although at the time that happened it was my predecessor who was Chief Estates Officer.

 

41.  Mr Campbell QC:  So when we get to May 1997 and subsequent events, it would be right to understand, would it, that PACE had no function in the Scottish scheme of things?

 

42.  Mr Andrew:  We had a number of agreements with them for exchanging information.  On occasion, we would use their services, but it was an arm’s-length relationship.

 

43.  Mr Campbell QC:  In May 1997, how did the functions of PACE differ or interlock with the functions of the Land and Property Division which you headed?

 

44.  Mr Andrew:  Our main connection with them was with the exchange of information, so that if we were acquiring offices or we had surplus space, we would exchange that information so that the Government as a whole knew what was going on, and Government Departments did not end up bidding against each other for particular properties.

 

45.  Mr Campbell QC:  And did PACE have a function to perform for Government Departments within the former Scottish Office, subsequently the Scottish Executive?

 

46.  Mr Andrew:  That co-ordination agreement still subsists, but the organisation is now called the Office of Government Commerce.

 

47.  Mr Campbell QC:  I suppose what I am trying to get to is; is there an interlock between the property management, acquisition, valuation functions of your Division and PACE?

 

48.  Mr Andrew:  Not really, no.  They would work for us on request, and have done on certain projects, but basically it is an arm’s-length relationship.

 

49.  Mr Campbell QC:  And what could they do that you could not do with your team of five or six surveyors?

 

50.  Mr Andrew:  Their speciality is Government offices.  When we took over responsibility from PACE, my predecessor was the ex-Scottish Regional Director of the PSA [Property Services Agency], so he had expertise. We also took the precaution of recruiting one of PACE’s staff to advise specifically Accommodation Division, so we ensured that we had in-house advice on Government offices.

 

51.  Mr Campbell QC:  Just to complete this picture of the organisation chart, as it were; where does the Land and Property Division, which you head, sit in relation to the Directorate of Administrative Services.

 

52.  Mr Andrew:  Land and Property Division was a small professional division in the Directorate of Administrative Services, and we ran in parallel with Mrs Doig’s Accommodation Division.

 

53.  Mr Campbell QC:  So you would, if I understand that correctly, report to Mr Brown — Alistair Brown?

 

54.  Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

55.  Mr Campbell QC:  And was that the case in 1997; that you were reporting to Alistair Brown?

 

56.  Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

57.  Mr Campbell QC:  Now, it would be tedious to take you through all of the memos we have already looked at with Mr Brown.  What assumptions, if any, may I make in relation to Mr Brown’s minutes where they reflect commercial property advice?

 

58.  Mr Andrew:  Mr Brown would come to me for professional property advice but he might get day-to-day property information on running costs from Barbara Doig’s Division because they had all the running costs at their fingertips.

 

59.  Mr Campbell QC:  But in relation to the functions of your Division, which you have described, I think, quite fully now — acquisition, valuation, disposal, commissioning of outside advice, leasing; those sorts of areas — if Mr Brown is reflecting that kind of advice, is he, in effect, reflecting your advice?

 

60.  Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

61.  Mr Campbell QC:  And is Mr Brown qualified to either omit or include aspects of that advice in offering advice up to Ministers?

 

62.  Mr Andrew:  Mr Brown’s background is as a Civil Service administrator, and it is his judgement what information he transmits from me to other parts of the Department.

 

63.  Mr Campbell QC:  I think from the time of the election in 1997, you had quite a substantial personal input into aspects of advice to Ministers, right through to the time of the selection of the Holyrood site.  Is that correct?

 

64.  Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

65.  Mr Campbell QC:  Did you make a visit to the Royal High School site in May 1997, after the election?

 

66.  Mr Andrew:  Yes, on 9 May.

 

67.  Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look at SE/2/167, please?  What are we looking at there, Mr Andrew?

 

68.  Mr Andrew:  These are my first reactions to a visit to the Old Royal High School, basically to highlight main points that Alistair Brown would need to bear in mind when he was speaking to Ministers.

 

69.  Mr Campbell QC:  Who is Mrs Garvie, who seems to have gone with you?

 

70.  Mr Andrew:  Mrs Maureen E Garvie is my Principal Estates Surveyor.  She is the surveyor who was recruited from the PSA.

 

71.  Mr Campbell QC: Or PACE.

 

72.  Mr Andrew: Or PACE.

 

73.  Mr Campbell QC: So she is a professional colleague?

 

74.  Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

75.  Mr Campbell QC: Now, this was a visit to the Royal High School just after the election, not with any politicians. You took Dr Gibbons along. What was the impetus for this visit?

 

10.15 am

 

76.  Mr Andrew: I think we all felt that the Old Royal High School would be on the agenda in some form, that Ministers would want to talk to senior officials about it and that we really ought to at least have seen it to give informed comment.

 

77.  Mr Campbell QC: How long did you spend there?

 

78.  Mr Andrew: I have absolutely no recollection, but from the size of the building, one would have expected something between one and two hours. But I have no memory at all.

 

79.  Mr Campbell QC: You talk about the “Basis of Transfer” — obviously on the assumption that there would be a transfer at some stage — and

 

80.  “Open Market Value (OMV) as determined by the District Valuer (DV)”.

 

81.  You talk about

 

82.  “ancient circulars Treasury Circular 2/59, and DHS Circular 66/59”.

 

83.  It may be only peripherally relevant, but can you tell me what those are, please?

 

84.  Mr Andrew: It is basically a mechanism for transferring property within Government without going to the expense of negotiations and each side having their surveyors. It is mandatory within the Scottish Executive bodies, but it is optional between central and local government, so a local government body would have to agree to participate in the process.

 

85.  Mr Campbell QC: Right. And the process involves the District Valuer, really, as an arbiter on value, does it?

 

86.  Mr Andrew: Yes, he acts as an independent expert.

 

87.  Mr Campbell QC: And I think we can see later that, in relation to the Holyrood site, did he require joint instructions before he was able to come in behind the Scottish & Newcastle valuer, whose name I forget for the moment?

 

88.  Mr Andrew: The Holyrood site was privately owned, so his function there was to provide independent validation of what Jones Lang Wootton were doing.

 

89.  Mr Campbell QC: Right, OK. So these circulars — we may look at them later — are a mechanism for transferring property between or among Government Departments, compulsory as between Government Departments and optional as between central government and local government?

 

90.  Mr Andrew: At the time, that was true. After devolution, I do not think the Scottish Executive can oblige UK Government Departments to comply.

 

91.  Mr Campbell QC: Do you know if there has been a revision of these circulars?

 

92.  Mr Andrew: Earlier this year I undertook a consultation exercise throughout the Scottish public sector; we expect to be going to Ministers with conclusions in the next few months.

 

93.  Mr Campbell QC: Thank you. You also talk here about the need for a detailed conditions survey, which is clearly necessary in your view. Can you just explain to me the first paragraph, please, under the heading “The Building Conditions Survey”? You say there:

 

94.  “The building survey and design consultancy facility available in the existing St Andrew’s House contract gives us the opportunity to avoid spending the time tendering the contract afresh, and I understand there is to be a fee quoted by the end of May.”

 

95.  Can I take it, Mr Andrew, this is a reference to a contract for the part-refurbishment of St Andrew’s House, which was already in contemplation?

 

96.  Mr Andrew: Yes. DAS Accommodation Division had such a contract in existence.

 

97.  Mr Campbell QC: And what is the point you are trying to make here? What I am not entirely clear about is what you mean by

 

98.  “the survey and design consultancy facility available in the existing… contract”.

 

99.  Mr Andrew: Yes, it is a bit opaque. Basically, I am saying we have building surveyors on tap and to save time you could use those, if you wish.

 

100.          Mr Campbell QC: Are they your own people or people engaged for that contract?

 

101.          Mr Andrew: It would be external private contractors engaged on that work.

 

102.          Mr Campbell QC: So you would take them off the St Andrew’s House work and put them on to the Royal High School?

 

103.          Mr Andrew: My memory of this is really hazy, but my intuition is that these firms were sufficiently big that they would just do it anyway. The point I was really making was that we were very conscious, even at this stage, of timescale, and I was just saying, if you want to do something quickly, you can do it quickly with propriety, using this contract.

 

104.          Mr Campbell QC: Yes. Could you explain to me, in the next paragraph, the expression the “PES implications”?

 

105.          Mr Andrew: “Public Expenditure Survey”, so that Barbara Doig might know how much money was involved if it was going to be the Scottish Office that had to pay.

 

106.          Mr Campbell QC: For the survey or for a new Parliament?

 

107.          Mr Andrew: Sorry. The building conditions survey would tell her what sort of repair bill she might face should the Scottish Office have to take responsibility for the building.

 

108.          Mr Campbell QC: OK. If we could turn the page to SE/2/168, please. You deal there with the planning situation and you advise that you will want to speak to the planning authority. I do not think there is anything crucial there. And you say:

 

109.          “I have spoken to Richard Emerson of Historic Scotland. His initial response is that there should be few problems if we do not alter the exterior.”

 

110.          Was that a formal consultation with Historic Scotland?

 

111.          Mr Andrew: My memory is deficient. My suspicion is that that is simply an informal conversation.

 

112.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you know Richard Emerson at that time?

 

113.          Mr Andrew: I honestly cannot remember.

 

114.          Mr Campbell QC: Right. Could I look at two other documents with you before we move on, please: SE/2/154. Mr Andrew, this is a minute from you to Mr Brown, 19 May 1997, headed “Accommodation aspects of a Scottish Parliament”. I would like to consider with you the second paragraph, please, beginning “It might also be worth…” Do you see that?

 

115.          Mr Andrew: Yes indeed.

 

116.          Mr Campbell QC: “It might also be worth taking Ministers’ minds on the eventual ownership of the Parliament. Who actually owns and pays for the Palace of Westminster? Ultimately it is taxpayers but it is hardly appropriate that the Parliament building is run and paid for by the very Executive that that Parliament is supposed to be scrutinising. This may seem a pedantic point but behind it is the question of who will ultimately bear the running costs. Is this to be a perpetual charge on the Scottish block?”

 

117.          Before Lord Fraser interrupts me, this seems to be somewhat prescient, if I may say so. What led you at this time to raise an issue of this kind?

 

118.          Mr Andrew: We were just trying to spot the small clouds on the horizon before they became big ones. We did not understand on what basis the title to the Palace of Westminster was held. We did not know about we did not know about the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body. I was just asking the question: if I was told to acquire it, to whom would it transfer? Obviously, that has an implication for DAS Accommodation’s running costs.

 

119.          Mr Campbell QC: In the rest of the memo, I think you look at staffing — how shall I put it? — the degree of luxury, the quality of the fit-out, we might put it in that way. Over the page (SE/2/155) you look at some advantages. I should have taken from you that, in this minute, you are considering a draft, so this is a comment on a draft, is it not?

 

120.          Mr Andrew: Yes indeed.

 

121.          Mr Campbell QC:  On the second page we are looking at what you call “advantages” and “disadvantages”. You note the proximity of shops, the cost of moving civil servants and

 

122.          “consistent with the Government policy to strengthen town centres”.

 

123.          These are all aspects of your responsibility.

 

124.          Mr Andrew: Yes. They are just very, very preliminary thoughts. I was really prompting Alistair of things that might come up.

 

125.          Mr Campbell QC: OK. Can we look at SE/2/156. This is the final version of the minute on which you were commenting, is that correct?

 

126.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

127.          Mr Campbell QC: This is a minute which runs on for six pages. Could we look at SE/2/160? Can we understand here that in this table Mr Brown is setting out for Ministers estimated costs in relation to the Old Royal High School, including, apparently, in the third row, cost of “Fitting out SAH [St Andrew’s House]”, and yet mentioning again, in the fifth row, “SAH — essential works”? I wonder if I could just cover that with you. There was a contract let for partial refurbishment of St Andrew’s House, which was going to go ahead anyway, but had not yet started at this point. Is that right?

 

128.          Mr Andrew: Yes, correct.

 

129.          Mr Campbell QC: How was it proposed that, in the event of acquiring the Old Royal High School, allocation of funds would be dealt with?

 

130.          Mr Andrew: My memory is very hazy, but I think that at this time nobody was clear about quite what would happen if the Old Royal High School was taken on and St Andrew’s House became involved. All we knew was that we had already undertaken to do this work as Civil Service accommodation. I honestly do not think that at this stage we really knew what would happen.

 

131.          Mr Campbell QC: When we see there in the last line, “£6m already funded”, what does that mean in terms of budget allocations?

 

132.          Mr Andrew: I presume that Barbara Doig, the Head of Accommodation, probably had £6 million in her budget, but I do not know that for certain.

 

133.          Mr Campbell QC: So when we see “already funded”, it is money probably already allocated in a budget somewhere.

 

134.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

135.          Mr Campbell QC: OK. Could you please look at SE/2/092? This is Mr Brown again writing, including you in the circulation, on 12 June. On SE/2/093, paragraph 4, he is hazarding some costs in relation to the set-up costs of the new Parliament. Does this reflect advice that you have given to him?

 

136.          Mr Andrew: The advice that I would be giving to him on the options would relate to potential site acquisition costs. The costs of construction would come from Construction and Building Control Group.

 

137.          Mr Campbell QC: And the costs of accommodation rearrangement, presumably, would come from Barbara Doig?

 

138.          Mr Andrew: From Barbara Doig.

 

139.          Lord Fraser: Could we look at SE/2/164 please? Sir Russell Hillhouse seemed to have some concerns. I thought this document looked quite interesting.

 

140.          Mr Campbell QC: This is a minute from Mr Peddie, who is a Finance Officer. Is that right?

 

141.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

142.          Mr Campbell QC:  It is addressed to Mr Brown, as is so much else, including you in the circulation. 

 

143.          Lord Fraser:  It was the end of the second paragraph that caught my eye; that he was indicating that he was not confident that this submission —

 

10.30 am

 

144.          Mr Campbell QC:  I may be wrong, but I think we covered this with Mr Graham, the Principal Finance Officer, when he was here to give evidence.  In any event, Mr Andrew, is it right to understand this is a minute from Mr Peddie, your Finance Officer, to Mr Brown, underscoring the position of the Accounting Officer?

 

145.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  He is pointing out that the submission does not contain an economic appraisal of the different options.

 

146.          Mr Campbell QC:  That is at the beginning of paragraph 3.  He says in paragraph 4:

 

147.          “We appear to be making a recommendation on the basis of nothing more than a gut feeling. This is not enough in itself”.

 

148.          Interestingly, in paragraph 5, it looks as though at some point people were talking about a decision on location being needed by the end of May 1997. 

 

149.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

150.          Mr Campbell QC:  It may be hard for you to remember back that far now, but was that your understanding — that a decision would be needed that quickly?

 

151.          Mr Andrew:  My memory of the time is really hazy.  I do have the distinct impression, though, that there was a concern to deliver when instructed to do so.

 

152.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look at paragraph 6 in this minute:

 

153.          “Even on this basis, the submission would still need to still spell out why alternative sites would not be feasible for reasons of timescale.”

 

154.          Is that consistent with your understanding of accepted procedures?

 

155.          Mr Andrew:  Normal accepted procedures when Government is undertaking major expenditure is to do a Green Book economic appraisal, and I think that that is what Mr Peddie was driving at earlier.  I think Mr Batho has probably already commented to you about this.

 

156.          Mr Campbell QC:  What do you mean by Green Book economic appraisal?

 

157.          Mr Andrew:  The Green Book is a document prepared by the Treasury which sets out the way you should appraise particular economic options and it is a combination of two forms of appraisal.  There is a discounted cash-flow appraisal, where you project all the cost streams over the life of the project and all the income streams, if there are any, and discount them back to give you a net present value or a net present cost, so there is a quantitative indicator for Ministers to make a decision on.  Coupled with that, for those items that you cannot quantify, there is a weighting and scoring matrix that sits side-by-side with it.  The authority on these matters rests with the Chief Economist of the Scottish Office and the Scottish Executive, that we were involved with in property appraisals.

 

158.          Mr Campbell QC:  You said there were two methods.

 

159.          Mr Andrew:  Sorry.  One method, split into two parts; anything you can quantify you project forward as costs or income and the second part covers things that are important but difficult to quantify like disabled access, closeness to clients, the things that you cannot actually put a monetary value on.

 

160.          Mr Campbell QC:  Historic importance?

 

161.          Mr Andrew:  Historic importance, yes.

 

162.          Mr Campbell QC:  Aesthetic values?

 

163.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

164.          Mr Campbell QC:  Clearly, at the time prior to devolution, the Green Book would be important, if not compulsory?

 

165.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, and it is still used.

 

166.          Mr Campbell QC:  It is still used?

 

167.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

168.          Mr Campbell QC:  You anticipated the next question.  So, in devolved Scotland, the Treasury Green Book is still used?

 

169.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, the Scottish Executive is not bound by Treasury rules, but my understanding is that it has opted to follow the discipline of the Green Book.

 

170.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is the Green Book publicly available?

 

171.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, I am sure the Inquiry can have a copy very quickly.

 

172.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well we may have one already, but I just wondered as a matter of fact.

 

173.          Mr Andrew:  It is publicly available, and a few months ago it was on the web.

 

174.          Mr Campbell QC:  Right, thank you.  Sir, will that be all in relation to that document?

 

175.          Lord Fraser: Yes, thank you.  It was just seeing his name on there.

 

176.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you confirm that you had a meeting with Mrs Doig and colleagues from the Construction and Building Control Group on 13 June 1997 and did you learn at that meeting that Ministers would prefer to see a wider range of options?

 

177.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

178.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is that meeting reflected in — or is the result of that meeting reflected in — your minute of 19 June SE/2/120?

 

179.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. At this stage I had no mandate to go outside the Department, so I was providing information to Alistair on possible options within the knowledge of my Division, and from a publicly available document.  I think it may have been a draft local plan; I have lost the original document.

 

180.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can we see here that you are considering a range of sites?  What is the basis of your comment in this second line:

 

181.          “Only the new-build option struck an immediate chord.”?

 

182.          Mr Andrew:  I am merely recording my understanding so that, if I have got it wrong, somebody will tell me.

 

183.          Mr Campbell QC:  What do you mean by the three options referred to in that top line?

 

184.          Mr Andrew:  The three options at that stage were broad locations rather than particular sites.  So Leith could have embodied more than one parcel of land.  The Haymarket area could also have covered more than one area of land, and Old Royal High School, Calton Hill was the other one, but again, there was no set permutation.

 

185.          Mr Campbell QC:  You make comments on the advantages and disadvantages of various locations: Waverley site, Greenside and, over the page, land at Leith, that is SE/2/121.  You refer there to your Annex A and Annex C.  Just to study the extent of your consideration at that time, could we look at SE/2/122.  There is reference here to Holyrood Road, Mr Andrew, which we should cover for the sake of completeness.  It does appear that you are referring, at least in part, to the brewery site.  Do you remember how this site came to your attention?

 

186.          Mr Andrew:  In the first line, I am referring to that land now covered by the Dynamic Earth which S&N [Scottish & Newcastle], I think, may have given or sold for that purpose.  Yes, that is the one I am referring to; it is the old gasworks site.

 

187.          Mr Campbell QC:  You do talk about the brewing industry in the top line.  The site would be near Holyrood Palace, you say:

 

188.          “some distance from St Andrew’s House...  Concern about decontamination following gas...  Sight lines being sensitive…  Not clear if owners would sell”,

 

189.          and so forth.  And ultimately unclear as to whether there would be enough room if the Dynamic Earth or the Younger Universe, as it was called then, would wish to proceed.

 

190.          Mr Andrew:  I think at this time we were not sure at what stage the enterprise company contracts were at, and we just knew there was land there ripe for development.

 

191.          Mr Campbell QC:  So, it would be quite wrong to think of this as any sort of preliminary assessment of the brewery/Queensberry House site?

 

192.          Mr Andrew:  That was not in mind at that point, no.

 

193.          Mr Campbell QC:  Had you had contact in relation to these various sites listed on this page and the following page with any of the landlords or agents?

 

194.          Mr Andrew:  I had been involved with the Education Department on Moray House in the appointment of DTZ Debenham Thorpe, so I was well aware of that disposal.  I think the others were simply general knowledge.

 

195.          Mr Campbell QC:  What is page SE/2/124, please?

 

196.          Mr Andrew:  This was a photocopy, I think from a local planning document, but I cannot be sure because I did not retain the original document.  I suspect it is a list of development opportunities produced by the City of Edinburgh Council Planning Department.

 

197.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you follow up the Holyrood reference to Ministers with SE/2/090, which is dated 26 June 1997?

 

198.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, I simply checked out about availability for Alistair Brown.  I spoke to the local enterprise company, and they confirmed that contracts were already in place for the Younger Universe centre so that site was not available,  but we also discussed land that the enterprise company and Scottish & Newcastle had been dealing with, which is now, I think, to the west of the current Parliament site, and this had been split up and already sold to developers.

 

199.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think part of it is flats, part of it is a hotel and part of it is an office premises.  Is that right?

 

200.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

201.          Mr Campbell QC:  And that is all land lying on the north side of Holyrood Road; the same side as the Parliament?

 

202.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

203.          Mr Campbell QC:  A number of times during the Inquiry, Mr Andrew, we have had occasion to go through the changes in the White Paper before publication.  I am not going to do that again, but we know the White Paper culminated in a range for the Parliament location of between £10 million and £40 million.  Can I ask were you consulted or did you advise in relation to that range?

 

204.          Mr Andrew:  I do not remember having any input into the White Paper at all because this was mainly a policy-maker’s document and I do not remember seeing any drafts.  In fact, I am not even sure I read it at the time; I think we were too busy.  I know that sounds ridiculous now, but I am not sure I read it at the time.

 

205.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you.  Did you have a meeting on 7 August with the City of Edinburgh Council in relation to potential sites for the Parliament?  I am sorry, was there a meeting on 7 August?

 

206.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, there was, and Land and Property Division was represented by Iain Cane.

 

207.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did that meeting, as far as you understand it, examine a long list and try to reduce it to a shortlist?

 

208.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

209.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look at the document which begins at SE/2/012, and, for the sake of the record, stretches to SE/2/033?  Is that a letter from Mr Brown, your boss, to the Chief Executive of the City of Edinburgh Council, Mr Aitchison, referring, among other things, to an annex attached to the letter asking for his views about environmental impact and local economic impact?

 

210.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, it is.

 

211.          Mr Campbell QC:  Then saying:

 

212.          “particularly grateful for views on the two Regent Road options or the Morrison Street options”.

 

213.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

214.          Mr Campbell QC:  There was a passing mention to Leith that goes on in the next page.

 

215.          Mr Andrew:  I think the discussion was beginning to refine a list of criteria against which sites were to be tested, and I think these were the ones that they probably used, though I have seen it in slightly different formats; I think that is what this was.

 

216.          Mr Campbell QC:  Does the footer on the page help you identify the source of it?

 

217.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, that would be Myra Steel, Alistair Brown’s personal secretary.

 

218.          Mr Campbell QC:  These are what, general criteria to be applied to the site selection process, I guess?

 

10.45 pm

 

219.          Mr Andrew: Yes, each site would be looked at against these criteria and most of these — apart from the cost section — most of these are qualitative matters and they would be scored qualitatively.

 

220.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could we then page through the document beginning at SE/2/016, which is the City of Edinburgh document? 

 

221.          Mr Andrew: I am not sure that I ever used this document but it looks to me as though this is a paper prepared by the City of Edinburgh District Council as a refinement of the criteria, going into a little bit more detail to help with the shortlisting process and then the analysis of the shortlist.

 

222.          Mr Campbell QC:  And did that essentially whittle down along the list to Calton Hill, Morrison Street and Leith?

 

223.          Mr Andrew: I believe that by the end of the meeting that Iain Cane was at, they had focused down on three main options or locational options.

 

224.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you have subsequent meetings on 14 and 18 August about this, firstly, with your colleagues and secondly, with or including City of Edinburgh Council officials?

 

225.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

226.          Mr Campbell QC:  And did you subsequently meet Historic Scotland on 20 August?

 

227.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

228.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think that meeting is unminuted.

 

229.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

230.          Mr Campbell QC:  Who did you meet?  Can you remember? 

 

231.          Mr Andrew: I cannot recall.

 

232.          Mr Campbell QC:  All right. It does not matter. I would like to now move on a little bit. On 21 August, you tell us you provided advice to Mr Brown.  I think that is at SE/2/421 if we could look at that. What is happening here, Mr Andrew, please?

 

233.          Mr Andrew:  Robert Gordon had been saying that he thought the time was coming when we should be getting external professional advice, and I agreed with that. This was just a first comment to Alistair Brown about what we might do about it.

 

234.          Mr Campbell QC:  Right. Can we just look at the second-last paragraph?

 

235.          “Care needs to be exercised in case a private seller is unwilling or becomes ‘unwilling’ to secure a better price for himself.”

 

236.          Mr Andrew:  What are you really saying here? Hold off committing yourself?

 

237.          Mr Andrew:  Even at this stage we knew that some of the sites were in public sector ownership so acquisition need not be too difficult, but some options might be in private sector ownership, and I was just anxious that the process be managed so that no private sector owner had heightened expectations and drove the price up.

 

238.          Mr Campbell QC:  You suggest to Mr Brown:

 

239.          “ We have to try to get the deal sewn up between the decision on location being made and the verdict being made public.”

 

240.          Mr Andrew:  Often, the public sector has compulsory powers to acquire property. As far as we were aware, no compulsory powers existed. Therefore, we would be purchasing on the open market. Obviously, if an individual owner felt that the Executive had become unduly committed to it, there would be the natural temptation to —

 

241.          Mr Campbell QC:  To drive the price up?

 

242.          Mr Andrew:  To evaluate the price upwards, yes.

 

243.          Mr Campbell QC:  You envisaged a process, did you, with a decision being taken essentially in private and then a deal being sewn up in principle and then the public announcement?

 

244.          Mr Andrew:  I think, even when I was writing this, I was aware that there was a tension between public policy and normal commercial surveying practice, and I was just highlighting to Alistair that this was a danger and he had to think about it.

 

245.          Mr Campbell QC:  You mention in the last second paragraph that you can provide a “shortlist of agents who can do the job” for you. The job was what, that you had in mind?

 

246.          Mr Andrew:  We felt that the Division did not have expertise in private finance, institutional finance and other ways of financing property acquisition, so we were interested in that dimension. We had to accept our limitations and the knowledge of the market. Although we had the benefit of the City of Edinburgh Council and their Estates Department, private sector firms often have a knowledge of their private clients’ needs — properties that might become available that are not known to the public sector.

 

247.          I also wanted somebody to stand back and look critically at what we were doing while we were doing it because, in the nature of a job like this, when you are working against time and you are under a lot of pressure in an organisation — this will probably be misquoted — with a relatively closed culture, it is very easy to become blinkered and think what you are doing is marvellous, and I wanted somebody outside who had experience of commerce to look over our shoulders and see if we were missing something really obvious.

 

248.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is that a tack you had taken before in other projects? On a large scale?

 

249.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  Probably the biggest thing we were involved with was the disposal of the Scottish New Town property assets, and there we used teams of private consultants because again it is an area in which we had no expertise. So, yes, we have done this before.

 

250.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is that places like Irvine and East Kilbride and Cumbernauld?

 

251.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, the disposal of the portfolios.

 

252.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you take this idea forward in relation to the Scottish Parliament site selection process?

 

253.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, Alistair Brown wanted me to take this forward, and there is a difference of testimony here, which I put down to memory. My memory of this is that I was asked to produce a shortlist of agents to interview, which we did. We then asked them to tender. When I say we —

 

254.          Mr Campbell QC:  Excuse me interrupting; presumably having written a brief for them first?

 

255.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, and they were interviewed by Robert Gordon, Alistair Brown, myself and I think one other and then asked to tender, and as a result the firm Jones Lang Wootton [JLW], as they were then known, were appointed.

 

256.          Mr Campbell QC:  And were they selected only on price?

 

257.          Mr Andrew:  I honestly cannot remember. We normally try and assess what, in the jargon, we call value for money; in other words, we have to be assured of quality as well as price.

 

258.          Mr Campbell QC:  So just underline for me what you thought you were acquiring with Jones Lang Wootton, please?

 

259.          Mr Andrew:  We were getting on-side a deep understanding of the market in Edinburgh, including areas of the market that would not be known to City of Edinburgh Council or ourselves. We were getting an understanding of institutional finance — unconventional financing — if we required it. We were getting somebody to scrutinise what we were doing as we were doing it and making sure that we were not making any particular mistakes, and we had them available to negotiate on our behalf with the property owners of the options.

 

260.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is there any particular reason why it might be important to have outside agents to negotiate a tentative deal for the acquisition of a property?

 

261.          Mr Andrew:  There was the practical one that we had not the manpower; there were just five of us. And also, commercial property negotiation is a skilled expertise, and although we do negotiate from time to time on a project like this we wanted very very high quality negotiators.

 

262.          Mr Campbell QC:  It is obviously much more than just the price, is it not?

 

263.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

264.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you give JLW any instructions in relation to making tentative enquiries of prospective providers of a Parliament site?

 

265.          Mr Andrew:  I think somewhere in the papers there are written instructions and a written brief. This is just from my memory. I think we asked them to review the long list and asked whether we had missed anything or whether there were any sites not known to City of Edinburgh Council and ourselves.

 

266.          Mr Campbell QC:  And you did invite them, did you, to open negotiations privately with the Haymarket site and the Leith site and the Old Royal High School proprietors?

 

267.          Mr Andrew:  I am not quite sure at what stage we were at, but certainly in the course of the whole process they were negotiating with the proprietors of all three options.

 

268.          Mr Campbell QC:  Clearly, on your instructions.

 

269.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

270.          Mr Campbell QC:  But not with an intention to close a deal, Mr Andrew?

 

271.          Mr Andrew:  The purpose of Jones Lang Wootton’s work was to clarify really basic things like: how big is the site; what are its boundaries; what sort of terms are the proprietors prepared to offer; what sort of timescale.  The object was to reach some sort of broad agreement in principle, so that our solicitors could begin to frame legal documentation as best they could to take the deal as far forward as we possibly could, so that when Ministers made a decision we were as advanced as we possibly could be.

 

272.          Mr Campbell QC:  This document I am looking at, SE/2/266 to SE/2/269 is really an updating report for the team from Mr Robertson of JLW?

 

273.          Mr Andrew:  Oh, yes. Yes, they were giving us a verbal report; that is Alan Robertson.

 

274.          Mr Campbell QC:  Yes. So we see a general introduction, then we see that he talks about Haymarket — I do not need to bother you with the details of this just now. Turn the page. He looks at Calton Hill and if we scroll down we have the beginning of Leith at the very foot of, page SE/2/268; consideration of Leith; consideration, further down, of the City of Edinburgh Council’s attitude, planning issues, Mr Elvidge intervening to emphasise the planning aspects of the matter, raising the question of whether Edinburgh can be truly objective if it makes a decision for one site.

 

275.          Could you just help me with one thing?  In SE/2/269, the question of gifts was touched on briefly.  I do not want this to be misunderstood in any way.  Is this a reference to gifts of land?

 

11.00 am

 

276.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  Forth Ports Authority apparently had indicated that they might be prepared to give land, and obviously I discussed this with Mr Peddie.  Basically, as the guardian of propriety, I was asking him what the rules were about accepting a gift of land from anybody, and then later in the documentation you will also see that there are questions that arise if that gift is from a local authority, what the proprieties are because at the time there were constraints on local authorities about giving land. 

 

277.          Mr Campbell QC: Forth Ports, of course, at that time, fell between the public and private sector, did it not?  It was called the Forth Ports Authority at that time. 

 

278.          Mr Andrew:  I honestly cannot remember what their status was at this time. 

 

279.          Mr Campbell QC: Was this advice updated on, I think it is 29 September? SE/2/1734, I think.  The production of an interim report by Jones Lang Wootton to you.  This is quite a detailed document, Mr Andrew.  It runs through to SE/2/1752.  Can we just go to it?  I was going to say can we go to its conclusions, but that is difficult because it is not summarised properly.  Did you find this to be a helpful contribution to the discussion? 

 

280.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, I did.  I think —

 

281.          Mr Campbell QC: I am sorry. Could you go to SE/2/1737 while Mr Andrew is talking, please? 

 

282.          Mr Andrew:  I think the reason it has no conclusions is that it was interim and they were asking for our comments as to whether they were on the right lines.  I found this helpful because they highlighted one or two possibilities that we had not thought about, and I was able to check those out.  They had looked over the criteria, which are referred to as the matrix because it was set out in tabular format, and they had examined that and they seemed to feel that we were on the right lines and they raised certain issues that we had to take forwards, so I found it helpful. 

 

283.          Mr Campbell QC: We can see that they consider adding to the list the Morrison Street site adjacent to the Conference Centre; that is briefly summarised.  They also look at a site at the west of Edinburgh at Hermiston and the New Street Bus Station and then they go on to consider alternative sites, which I need not trouble you with.  On the next page, SE/2/1738, you then have a detailed assessment of each of the three shortlisted sites.  So, there was Jones Lang Wooton essentially doing the job you had asked them to do and reporting by 25 September or thereabouts.  Is that right? 

 

284.          Mr Andrew:  I think we received it on 29 September. 

 

285.          Mr Campbell QC: Excuse me, 29 September.  Now, Mr Andrew, on 2 October, did you take the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh? 

 

286.          Mr Andrew:  I took the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh.  I have to admit since doing my precognition, I have come across another diary and I cannot be certain about the date of the second, but yes, I was definitely on a train with colleagues from Glasgow to Edinburgh. 

 

287.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you meet John Clement on that trip? 

 

288.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  My memory is that there were five of us, including Peter Stewart of PACE, Maureen Garvie, myself and, I think, the fourth was Mr Robert Niven of PACE. 

 

289.          Mr Campbell QC: A colleague? 

 

290.          Mr Andrew:  We knew them in the course of business, yes. 

 

291.          Mr Campbell QC: Were you about Parliament business on that trip? 

 

292.          Mr Andrew:  No, we were returning, from memory, from some presentation in Glasgow. 

 

293.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you meet Mr Clement? 

 

294.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

295.          Mr Campbell QC: Can you tell me what you recall of the trip? 

 

296.          Mr Andrew:  I do not recall a lot.  I think we submitted an account by the journalist Stewart McIntosh, who profiled Mr Clement five months after the event in ‘Property Week’.  All I can say is that seems a reasonable recollection.  My own recollection is pretty weak, but it seems a pretty fair account. 

 

297.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is that the article in SE/2/1226? 

 

298.          Mr Andrew:  Indeed. 

 

299.          Mr Campbell QC: Is the manuscript note at the top yours or Mr Brown’s? 

 

300.          Mr Andrew:  Oh, that is mine. 

 

301.          Mr Campbell QC: Sorry if it is coming back to haunt you.  You say,  

 

302.          “For information and amusement.  There is some truth in it.  When asked I asked for my name and MG to be kept out of it —  fortunately.”

 

303.          That is Mrs Garvie, I guess. 

 

304.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  What had happened there was the journalist had been doing his homework and he asked our press office if we wanted our names in the public record. 

 

305.          Mr Campbell QC: And you said no.   

 

306.          Mr Andrew:  We said no. 

 

307.          Mr Campbell QC: Did Mr Clement put Holyrood in front of you in the course of that journey? 

 

308.          Mr Andrew:  From what I remember, he simply said “What are you looking for?”  As far as I can remember, and I cannot remember words, I think what would have happened was we would have summarised the criteria as we then understood them and said something on the lines of “We are looking for a site that would accommodate a building of around 15,000 square metres, with good public transport links, that really must not be any more remote from the centre than Leith”.  It would have been just something general like that; surveyors’ speak, broad terms.  But I am almost certain that he did not mention the site he had in mind, because further on in the article he says,

 

309.          “When I thought about it, I thought they were being driven to a particular conclusion.”

 

310.          It seems to me from this account that he only thought about the Scottish & Newcastle site later because he was not actually retained by them at the time. 

 

311.          Mr Campbell QC:  We will leave that out of it.  Do you remember telling Mr Clement that, if he had a site, he should write to Dr Gibbons? 

 

312.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  At the time, because my division, was the link between the Scottish Executive and the property world, we get approached quite regularly, and what I would just have told him, if you do find you have something, you should write to John Gibbons. 

 

313.          Mr Campbell QC: Can you look at SE/2/590?  Did you see that letter from John Clement a few days later? 

 

314.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  John Gibbons attached it to a minute that he circulated to four recipients, of whom I was one, basically with the query, sort of, “haven’t we seen this before?  Is there anything new?”  It was a sort of general query on those lines. 

 

315.          Mr Campbell QC: In that connection, then, can you look at SE/2/591 please?  Is that your handwriting, Mr Andrew? 

 

316.          Mr Andrew:  My handwriting is on the left: 

 

317.          “Myra, do you have the plan?”

 

318.          On the right, that is Alistair Brown. 

 

319.          Mr Campbell QC: Let us see what he says: 

 

320.          “Is site no. 8 on the plan any different from our Haymarket site and does the letter add anything to our consideration of that site?”

 

321.          Mr Andrew:  My guess is that John Gibbons had circulated to Alistair — this is Alistair’s copy — and he is saying, “Anthony, is this any different?”

 

322.          And I am just getting… weaving, finding out, and the first step was to get a plan. 

 

323.          Mr Campbell QC: Can we look down and see what you say? 

 

324.          “Alastair, the broad answer is yes it is the same, but for the avoidance of doubt I include a clearer plan.  It adds nothing except the assertion that the site is cleared with the CAA for a heliport.”

 

325.          Can we look at SE/2/592?  Somebody has written, “Is this a real possibility?”

 

326.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  That is Alistair Brown.  I think the thing at the top, I think that is my name. 

 

327.          Mr Campbell QC: Yes, I think so.  Can we go down to see your response, which is handwritten on this.  Perhaps you can help me with that.  Can you just read it for me? 

 

328.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

329.          “Mr Brown, I think the site is bigger because it includes Queensberry House and the Teague Homes site.  These may ease the constraint of size, but to put a Parliament here would strain communications from the Royal Mile, Holyrood Park and Abbey Hill.  It is also relatively peripheral.  It is not really attractive unless Calton Hill and Leith fail, in which case you could pitch this site — poor communications, good ambience against Haymarket — good communication and poor ambience.  It is better than Bristo Square.  The short answer is no, it is not a contender at present.”

 

330.          Mr Campbell QC: How wrong can you be, Mr Andrew?  I am sorry, that is not fair at all.  I apologise. 

 

331.          That note would go to Mr Brown, presumably, for feeding back to Dr Gibbons or Mr Gordon.  Is that right? 

 

332.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

333.          Mr Campbell QC: What was the next you heard about Holyrood? 

 

334.          Mr Andrew:  I do not have a clear recollection, but I suspect I am inferring with hindsight that I probably got an oral view from Alistair Brown that the Secretary of State was disposed to consider it. 

 

335.          Mr Campbell QC:  Were you aware at the time that you wrote this response to Alistair Brown as to whether or not Queensberry House had been acquired by Scottish & Newcastle? 

 

336.          Mr Andrew:  I am honestly not sure at what point they disclosed that they had bought it off the market.  I suspect I may have done because I do say I think the site is bigger because it includes Queensberry House, but, I mean, there is obviously uncertainty because I was saying it included the Teague Homes site, so there was obviously some clarification needed. 

 

337.          Mr Campbell QC: I am not sure that SE/2/590, the 3 October letter, included a plan.  Did it? 

 

338.          Mr Andrew:  My copy of 3 October has a plan. 

 

339.          Mr Campbell QC: Yes, I see the reference to a plan.  I have not actually seen it.  You have it, do you?  Does that include Queensberry House? 

 

340.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

341.          Mr Campbell QC: It does.  I will take your word for it then.  That is fine.  Perhaps I can get a copy of that from you in due course.  So there was no need for you to check whether Queensberry House had been acquired at that stage? 

 

342.          Mr Andrew:  Not at that stage.

 

343.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think you got further information quite quickly from John Clement, did you, in MS/1/001 and MS/1/002, which is the same letter?   

 

344.          Mr Andrew: Yes I had obviously spoken to him the day before to get some more information. 

 

345.          Mr Campbell QC: Would that be because the Secretary of State had indicated through his Private Secretary and Mr Gordon and so on that he was disposed to look at it more closely?

 

346.          Mr Andrew: Yes.  I would not be doing this on my own initiative. 

 

347.          Mr Campbell QC: Even if the site had had evident attractions?

 

348.          Mr Andrew: No, I would have needed instructions. 

 

349.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you meet with Scottish & Newcastle and/or Mr Clement quite quickly, and thereafter meet with Richard Emerson of Historic Scotland?

 

11.15 am

 

350.          Mr Andrew: Yes, I did.  I think things started to happen relatively quickly.  I think I went to look at the site on 15 October, which is the day before this letter, and I spoke to him on the telephone the same day, and that stimulated that letter.  Then on the 16^th I visited Scottish & Newcastle and met their representatives to look at the site more carefully. 

 

351.          Mr Campbell QC: Had you given the same attention over time to the other sites?

 

352.          Mr Andrew: Yes.  I had visited the other sites, but, I mean, obviously St Andrew’s House was known to me.  I was working at Victoria Quay; it was very easy to see Leith and Haymarket, so yes. 

 

353.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you in due course get a submission from Scottish & Newcastle, which extolled the virtues of the site, running to about 20 pages?

 

354.          Mr Andrew: Somewhat later in the process I received an A3 document and a covering letter. 

 

355.          Mr Campbell QC: And also a covering letter, not a 20-page document with text only?  I will try and find it for you.

 

356.          Mr Andrew: It is a little bit later that I received this document. 

 

357.          Mr Campbell QC: Could you look at the document which begins at MS/1/006, please?  It may not be helpful to you to see it on the screen, but if I may, sir, can I just show you that? I think we are talking about the same document.  The one you have has graphics in it as well though, does it?

 

358.          Mr Andrew: Yes. 

 

359.          Mr Campbell QC: What did you do with that when this arrived in your office?

 

360.          Mr Andrew: We received five copies; I retained one and circulated the other four. 

 

361.          Mr Campbell QC: Can you tell me at this time what the level of excitement was about the prospect of adding another candidate site to the list?

 

362.          Mr Andrew: I understood that there was significant Ministerial interest in this.  At some stage, and I think it is probably somewhere in my precognition, I was actually told to go and do some work to try and bring the level of appraisal on Holyrood up to the standard of the other options. 

 

363.          Mr Campbell QC: You described the line of communication and so on.  In every case would that sort of instruction come to you from Alistair Brown?

 

364.          Mr Andrew: Yes.  I did not meet Robert Gordon and the rest of the team that often, so it would come through Alistair Brown. 

 

365.          Mr Campbell QC: Even although you were copied into the minutes?

 

366.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

367.          Mr Campbell QC: A lot of the time, anyway. 

 

368.          Mr Andrew: Yes.  The copying in was for information; instructions came from Alistair. 

 

369.          Lord Fraser: Did you know whether the Secretary of State had visited this site at about this time?

 

370.          Mr Andrew: I have an informal pencil note that I made at the time that said the Secretary of State visited it in the morning.  I just noted it and I went down at lunchtime just to have a look at the site. 

 

371.          Lord Fraser: From the time of his visit to the time of your visit at lunchtime, had there passed to you any opinion as to the Secretary of State’s interest in it?  You seem to react quite quickly once you know that there is an interest. 

 

372.          Mr Andrew: It was a bit like the Old Royal High School — I was just trying to stay ahead of the game because, you know, questions would come quick and fast, and if you have not seen a building, you are not a very convincing surveyor. 

 

373.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you visit the site on 12 November with Mr Hume of Historic Scotland, Graham Reed, also of Historic Scotland, somebody from Lewis & Hickey, John Clement and a number of your colleagues?

 

374.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

375.          Mr Campbell QC: What was the purpose of that meeting?

 

376.          Mr Andrew: I am not sure whether I made a note of that meeting.  Just from the personnel involved, without going to my records, I would infer we were information-seeking, would assume John Hume was familiarising himself with the heritage and listed building aspect, but because Mr Miele and Mr Roland Reid were there and John Clement, I would imagine there would be an element of it being — I do not mean this in an uncouth way — but there would be an element of promotional exercise in it as well, I imagine. 

 

377.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you give instructions following that visit, and a subsequent visit with Richard Emerson and others, to the District Valuer for any purpose? 

 

378.          Mr Andrew: Yes.  Things had been moving on generally with all the options, and we were feeling the need to get firmer information on value, both for our own benefit and for the councils, so I instructed valuations for transfer between the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Office on the sites that they owned, including the Old Royal High School, the solum of Regent Road and the Haymarket site.  And ultimately, a little bit later in the process, obviously I instructed the District Valuer in connection with the Holyrood site. 

 

379.          Mr Campbell QC: And what were you asking him to do? 

 

380.          Mr Andrew: In the Holyrood site?

 

381.          Mr Campbell QC: No, in all of the sites.

 

382.          Mr Andrew: On the sites that were publicly owned, I was asking him to provide a valuation, should the property be transferred.  So, it is the price between public bodies.  In the context of Holyrood, though, that was in private ownership.  What we were asking him to do was to stand back as an independent valuer, not connected with Jones Lang Wootton, and give us an informed view on the price we were paying — basically, on public propriety grounds — that this was a fair and just price. 

 

383.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you know by this time what indicative price John Clement was after?

 

384.          Mr Andrew: There is correspondence with various figures in it later, and there was negotiation on price, yes.  I think price emerged somewhat later than this though.  I think there are papers discussing price. 

 

385.          Mr Campbell QC: Did you give Jones Lang Wootton similar instructions in relation to a valuation exercise for Holyrood?

 

386.          Mr Andrew: I think the day that the Secretary of State announced that there was a fourth option under consideration, I telephoned them and asked them to perform the same services for the Holyrood site that they were undertaking for the other three.

 

387.          Mr Campbell QC: And by the time the Secretary of State had a press conference on the 23 December 1997, did you have in front of you then Jones Lang Wootton’s assessment of value for all four sites, and also the District Valuer’s assessment of all four sites?

 

388.          Mr Andrew: Events were rather telescoped.  May I just check my papers, because the price did change over the few days?  Sorry, the date you wanted, it was what — 24 December?

 

389.          Mr Campbell QC: We know that the Secretary of State’s press conference was on 23 December, and he announced among other things that he was in the possession of enough information to help him make a decision.  I am just looking for your confirmation that JLW’s price assessment, value assessment, was in front of you by that date, and also the assessment of the District Valuer. 

 

390.          Mr Andrew: The District Valuer’s report was dated 5 January 1998. 

 

391.          Mr Campbell QC: Just pause there then.  The Secretary of State did not have the District Valuer’s report on the four sites when he made that announcement on 23 December?

 

392.          Mr Andrew: No, and I mean I have documents to show that Jones Lang Wootton were negotiating on our behalf actively on 23, 24 December.

 

393.          Mr Campbell QC: In relation to one site or in relation to them all?

 

394.          Mr Andrew: Holyrood.

 

395.          Mr Campbell QC: In relation to Holyrood?

 

396.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

397.          Mr Campbell QC: There would be a pause, but only a brief one, for Christmas.  Did that carry on after Christmas?

 

398.          Mr Andrew: Indeed, we got a letter on 29 December from Jones Lang Wootton — I received it — showing their comparative evidence for the stance they were taking on price. 

 

399.          Mr Campbell QC: What date was that, I am sorry?

 

400.          Mr Andrew: This is a letter from Jones Lang Wootton dated 29 December, addressed to me. 

 

401.          Mr Campbell QC: That does not seem to have come out of your files in the production… Could you repeat that answer, Mr Andrew, please?

 

402.          Mr Andrew: On 29 December 1997, I received a letter from Alan Robertson of Jones Lang Wootton enclosing a table of comparative evidence for the valuation that he was putting forward. 

 

403.          Mr Campbell QC: I wonder if you might show that to me.  Is this a letter which looks at various financing options but also sets out in tabular form some comparable sales to help with an assessment of value?

 

404.          Mr Andrew: Yes.

 

405.          Mr Campbell QC: Does it reach a view; does it reach a conclusion about value?

 

406.          Mr Andrew: Not in that letter.  We had further discussions, and I have a file note that I spoke to Alan Robertson on the 29^th about the Holyrood site valuation, and we had a substantive discussion about value.  Then on 30 December, Alistair Brown and I went to meet Brian Stewart, the group managing director of Scottish & Newcastle, and Gordon Izatt, the group head of property at the Holyrood offices. 

 

407.          Mr Campbell QC: Was that to conclude a deal with them?

 

408.          Mr Andrew: I think we would have liked to conclude a deal, but we did not.  But I think Alistair Brown made the point that the public sector is not committed to a particular figure, it is committed to a process, and that the process that we had to follow had to ensure that we paid a fair price — no more, no less than market value.  What he was trying to do, and what we were trying to do, was to persuade them to buy into the process and take cognisance of the fact that we were constrained by the District Valuer’s view of price. 

 

409.          Mr Campbell QC: What are we to understand that the rules would have been, assuming that you had managed to come together on price?  Are you telling us that as part of the process that you would not have been able to go above the District Valuer recommendation? 

 

410.          Mr Andrew:  In the end, if there had been a difference between the District Valuer’s price and what Scottish & Newcastle were seeking, then I would have had to go back to Alistair Brown, who would have had to report to Ministers that there was a difference and that if he wished to pursue it, he would have to be able to justify doing that. 

 

411.          Mr Campbell QC:  What justification could there be for exceeding a District Valuer’s assessment?

 

412.          Mr Andrew:  At that point the matter moves from the professional realm to the political realm. 

 

413.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is that not a way of saying that Ministers are at liberty to make decisions about expenditure greater than the professional advice might indicate?

 

414.          Mr Andrew:  This really is not my remit.  This is the political realm, which would have been dealt with by senior administrators and Ministers.

 

415.          Mr Campbell QC:  I understand that, and you have carefully given evidence from your professional standpoint.  I completely understand that, but it cannot be an inflexible rule that the public sector can never acquire property over and above the District Valuer’s valuation?

 

416.          Mr Andrew:  As I understand it, Ministers would have to be prepared to defend such a decision politically.

 

417.          Mr Campbell QC:  As you understand it, Ministers have to be prepared to defend such a decision?

 

418.          Mr Andrew:  Politically, yes.

 

419.          Mr Campbell QC:  Politically.  So it is perhaps not correct to say that it is an inflexible rule that you cannot go above a District Valuer valuation?  There may be good political reasons for doing that.

 

420.          Mr Andrew:  It is not a fixed rule.  In my experience it is rare.

 

421.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could we look at SE/2/1328?

 

422.          Is that the District Valuer’s report to Mr Brown? And can we see that it is dated 5 January 1998?

 

423.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

424.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can we see on SE/2/1329 the basis of the DV’s remit?

 

425.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, that is correct.

 

426.          Mr Campbell QC:  And on SE/2/1330, details of the date of inspection; the description of the site and, paging through it, the condition; the floor areas; tenure; highways issues; ground conditions; valuation role entry; basis of valuation.  It is like reading an Agatha Christie book this; you do not get to the answer until you get to the end.  I think we have to go to SE/2/1336 — no, even I have got that wrong, it is SE/2/1335, the previous page:

 

427.          “I understand that JLW and Scottish & Newcastle have agreed a total sum of £3·474 million… payment to be staged as follows:”

 

428.          And then over the page we see how the payments are to be staged.  The DV is certifying £3·474 million excluding VAT as a reasonable open market price.

 

429.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

430.          Mr Campbell QC:  If I study this report, Mr Andrew, will I find out the basis on which he comes to that view?

 

431.          Mr Andrew:  He probably would not have given his comparison evidence.  That is quite normal.  He does not normally do that.  He will explain the basis of valuation — and that is on my page 5 — but he would not give the evidence on which it was based.

 

432.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can we also see, just for completeness, that at SE/2/1337 and SE/2/1338 he makes a number of assumptions.  I dare say these are to some extent standard for all valuations, but I hope, tailored to this case?

 

433.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  The District Valuer has standard assumptions, but he does modify them to fit each case.

 

434.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can we note that at the foot of SE/2/1338 that there is a confirmation that the valuation has been assessed by a qualified valuer?

 

435.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

436.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, what did you do with this information when you got it?

 

437.          Mr Andrew:  I would have passed it to Alistair Brown.

 

438.          Mr Campbell QC:  And in the result was that the acquisition price, which was paid to S&N for the site?

 

11.30 am

 

439.          Mr Andrew:  It may seem odd, but I was not actually in at the conclusion, which was part of the legal process, but to the best of my knowledge and belief, that was the price that was paid.

 

440.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you.  Just again for detail, Mr Andrew, did you receive a contribution — which is not, I think, for public consumption — from the Departmental Security Officer in relation to security issues relating to Holyrood, in early December?

 

441.          Mr Andrew:  I honestly cannot remember.  I think it is quite likely that I did, yes.

 

442.          Mr Campbell QC:  I am interested to know, only whether as a matter of routine, security considerations would be taken into account at as early a stage as this?

 

443.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  I know that the Departmental Security Officer had considered the site, and you will have seen discussions with Historic Scotland about certain items that affect security.

 

444.          Mr Campbell QC:  From the account you have given me it does not appear — I may be wrong about this, so please correct me if I am — it does not appear that once Holyrood emerged before officials in mid-October, very much work was done on the other three sites, in terms of sharpening up their merits and demerits for presentation to Ministers?

 

445.          Mr Andrew:  My understanding is that Jones Lang Wootton were working up to the point of heads of terms on the other three sites.  Some they progressed further than others because, for example Forth Ports, there was a difficulty of defining what the site actually was.  The other difficulty with Forth Ports was the degree of control that the Parliament would have over surrounding developments.  So, from the conveyancing point of view, that was quite a difficult one, but Jones Lang Wootton had been pursuing the other three.  Obviously, because this one was a little bit behind, they had to focus energy, and I had to focus quite a lot of energy, bringing it up to the same level as the others in that period. 

 

446.          Mr Campbell QC:  Were you getting any sort of steer that this was a preferred site in the Ministers’ minds at as early a stage as this?

 

447.          Mr Andrew:  I felt that there was enthusiasm for this site from Ministers, but that was transmitted through the hierarchy.

 

448.          Mr Campbell QC:  Certainly.  And were you able to say why that was?

 

449.          Mr Andrew:  No.

 

450.          Mr Campbell QC:  No.  I mean you are not just there as a cog in the wheel, Mr Andrew, you have obviously got antennae and you are listening to what people are saying?

 

451.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

452.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you feel that there was gathering political support for the site?

 

453.          Mr Andrew:  Certainly after it was announced there was obviously some support in the press.  I realise this must make me sound a bit like an automaton, but, to be truthful, we were working flat out to deliver, and I really did not have a lot of time to indulge my imagination, so I was really just very focused.

 

454.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you instruct a study of Queensberry House about 17 December from Simpson & Brown?

 

455.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

456.          Mr Campbell QC:  Was that on the basis of a single tender operation following a recommendation from Dr Gibbons?

 

457.          Mr Andrew:  From memory, and this is part memory and part record, the type of work involved is fairly specialised, and I think that I spoke to colleagues in Construction and Building Control Group, but I doubt if it was Dr Gibbons I think they directed me to speak to John Hume, who told me that Historic Scotland had a call-off contract already in place — a pre-tendered contract — that would enable the speedy appointment of Simpson & Brown, and they were appointed under that contract.  I do have a copy of the framework agreement should you require it.

 

458.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you, I would like that in due course.  What date is it please?

 

459.          Mr Andrew:  I think what I have is undated.  It is simply a photocopy of the terms on which such firms would be appointed.

 

460.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can you outline for the Inquiry what the remit given to Simpson & Brown was or was that somebody else’s responsibility?

 

461.          Mr Andrew:  No, it was for me. It was really to assess the physical condition of Queensberry House and to assess the price for bringing it up to — I cannot remember whether it was a good condition or average condition.  Just at the moment, I cannot quite remember.  I am sorry, I cannot remember whether they were expected to assess it to an average condition or a good condition.

 

462.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you.  Could you look at SE/2/1055 please?  What is that?

 

463.          Mr Andrew:  That is Alistair Brown instructing Simpson & Brown.

 

464.          Mr Campbell QC:  Just under your own reference to a call-off contract, you see they are being invited to bid there?

 

465.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  I think we were just asking them to quote a fee in advance, I think, so that we knew what we were facing.

 

466.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, with respect, the word “bid” does not mean quote a fee in advance, does it?

 

467.          Mr Andrew:  I mean it is a fair point, it is loose terminology, but actually Simpson & Brown were the only firm.

 

468.          Mr Campbell QC:  The only firm.

 

469.          Mr Andrew:  The only firm, yes.

 

470.          Mr Campbell QC:  And we can see what they were asked to do under terms of reference:

 

471.          “condition survey … cost of repair … to the standard of top quality accommodation” —

 

472.          whatever that may mean —

 

473.          “including professional fees”.

 

474.          Is that a term of art — “top quality accommodation”?

 

475.          Mr Andrew:  No, it is not a term of art.  I assume that we were thinking that if it was for a Parliament, it would be above average standard.

 

476.          Mr Campbell QC:  Turn to the next page (SE/2/1056).

 

477.          “The Condition Survey should be completed as soon as possible, but no later than 31 December”.

 

478.          I am sure this is an error, but can we just note that this letter is dated 17 December, and yet under the heading Submission of Bids, the prospective tenderer is asked to submit his tender by 12 December.

 

479.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  That is another drafting defect.

 

480.          Mr Campbell QC:  It might suggest, might it, that these letters are called down off a word processor and appropriate alteration has not been made?

 

481.          Mr Andrew:  It is possible.

 

482.          Mr Campbell QC:  And then, correcting myself, I think we can see at the foot of this page that there is a reference to the Historic Scotland call-off contract with your firm.  And then finally, over the page, a sketch plan is sent, a contract is sent, you are identified as the liaison person, and, in fact, you signed the letter.

 

483.          I think that work was delivered, was it not?  In time rather?

 

484.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, they were very prompt.

 

11.45 am

 

485.          Mr Campbell QC:  No doubt they did not have a very good Christmas?

 

486.          Mr Andrew:  I believe not.

 

487.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could we just turn back, Mr Andrew, onto a slightly different matter?  Can you tell me if you had anything to do with the commissioning of feasibility studies on the three candidate sites, later four?

 

488.          Mr Andrew:  The architectural feasibility studies?

 

489.          Mr Campbell QC:  Yes.

 

490.          Mr Andrew:  No, I would not have had anything to do with that.

 

491.          Mr Campbell QC: Right, noting that answer, did you have anything to do with the commissioning of cost consultancy advice in relation to the three candidate sites, later four?

 

492.          Mr Andrew:  No, that was the responsibility of John Gibbons, though I would draw your attention to the fact that in the Jones Lang Wootton instructions, they were asked to give advice on any broad matters of cost that came within their perview other than construction costs, because we were asking them for broad-brush advice on — would it cost more to build at Haymarket, for example, because of the tunnels and so on?

 

493.          Mr Campbell QC:  I understand that, but JLW’s commission essentially was —

 

494.          Mr Andrew: Commercial

 

495.          Mr Campbell QC: … to do with questions of acquisition of land and the cost of acquisition, not the cost of construction.

 

496.          Mr Andrew:  Absolutely.

 

497.          Mr Campbell QC:  Whereas the commission to DLE [Davis Langdon & Everest], in relation to the three, later four, sites was a stab at construction costs?

 

498.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

499.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look with me at document SE/2/1051.  This is a summary of advice provided by DLE in response to a commission from, I think, Dr Gibbons.  We must note that it is a summary; the principal document is much weightier. I have it here — it is nearly an inch thick. You can see on the first page of this summary the fourth site, Holyrood, was added, and if we turn to SE/2/1053 we can see what DL&E have to say.  What I would like to know, Mr Andrew, is whether you were given this in advance of the announcement and asked to analyse it and/or criticise it?

 

500.          Mr Andrew:  I have absolutely no memory of when I saw this document, or even if I did. I think all I can comment is that the figures in terms of size are only slightly different from what I was looking for in terms of site, but I honestly cannot remember whether I saw this or not.

 

501.          Mr Campbell QC:  That is an interesting answer.  What do you mean by “The figures I was looking for”?

 

502.          Mr Andrew:  Sorry. I was looking for a site that would accept a certain size of building, and it is just saying that the building area is, as envisaged, 16,470 square metres, which is near the brief of 15,880 square metres, and I was looking for something in the region of a site for 15,000 square metres.

 

503.          Mr Campbell QC:  So when you talk about figures, you are talking about area figures, not cost figures?

 

504.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  Absolutely.

 

505.          Mr Campbell QC:  This document in its form, as a principal, as I say, is quite weighty and it contains a number of tables with draw-offs from DLE’s own indices in relation to building costs.  Did those pass across your desk for criticism at all?

 

506.          Mr Andrew:  Not to my recollection. I think it is unlikely because that is not my area of expertise.

 

507.          Mr Campbell QC:  All right. Thank you for that.  Would I be correct in thinking that in the week covering Christmas and the week following it that the activity was really devoted to tightening up the heads of terms with each of the four competing sites?

 

508.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, and reaching agreement in principle on those terms, yes.

 

509.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look at SE/2/1285, which I think is a minute of yours of 8 January 1998.  What is this Mr Andrew, please?

 

510.          Mr Andrew:  This is my writing to PS Secretary of State to update him on the situation with the negotiations with Scottish & Newcastle.

 

511.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think I might be forgiven for reading the first sentence as understanding that you knew what the announcement was going to be tomorrow?

 

512.          Mr Andrew:  If you look at paragraph 2, I still refer to it as the preferred location, so my feeling is that at that time I felt the decision was not actually made.

 

513.          Mr Campbell QC:  You have a sense that it was very much the preferred location though?

 

514.          Mr Andrew:  I sensed Ministerial enthusiasm for this.

 

515.          Mr Campbell QC:  You are being cautious, as we would expect, Mr Andrew.  Can we not agree that by this time, which is 8 January, that it was common knowledge within the group — the close group — surrounding Mr Gordon that Holyrood was very much the preferred site?

 

516.          Mr Andrew:  My understanding was that Ministers were keen on Holyrood, yes.

 

517.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, I will respect your caution, Mr Andrew, and note it. Thank you.  What are you providing here to Ministers?

 

518.          Mr Andrew:  It is a brief situation report on the detailed draft heads of terms It is explaining the price and the phasing.  It is highlighting potential risk, so that the Minister is aware of risk, and I had understood that there was a proposal to have a discussion with Sir Alistair Grant, the Chairman of S&N, and it was just to draw to the Minister’s attention when Sir Alistair Grant would be available, and some points the Secretary of State might find helpful.

 

519.          Mr Campbell QC:  If I may return to my theme.  Could you go to paragraph 6.  You are giving the Secretary of State advice here as to how to present the price of £3·474 million and you suggest that he should present it as a price below £4 million, for the reason that it would save S&N from criticism for developers who might have offered more at an earlier stage.

 

520.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. It was a stipulation in the agreement that the price remained confidential and so, I think, we had that price — a price under £4 million or a price between £3 million and £4 million.

 

521.          Mr Campbell QC:  Just to be thorough, you do not actually say that in the advice to the Secretary of State, that it was a stipulation that the £3·474 million should remain confidential?

 

522.          Mr Andrew:  No, you are right, and when we saw the draft press pack the following day we did have to remind the Private Secretary. I think I had probably — I had probably… I think I had missed it out.

 

523.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now returning to my suggestion that it might have been obvious to everyone that Holyrood was going to be chosen, you do make reference in this paragraph to the “news release”, in the last sentence.

 

524.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

525.          Mr Campbell QC:  What is that a reference to, please?

 

526.          Mr Andrew:  I am presuming that it is the press release number 29 of 1998, issued the following day.

 

527.          Mr Campbell QC:  This minute suggests that you have seen it, at least in draft.

 

528.          Mr Andrew:  I probably would have done.  It would have been circulated to Alistair anyway.

 

529.          Mr Campbell QC:  And what does it say?

 

530.          Mr Andrew:  “Holyrood will be the home to Scotland’s Parliament.”

 

531.          Mr Campbell QC:  It must follow, must it not, that you must have known by the time you wrote this minute that there was to be an announcement to locate the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood; nothing wrong with that because Mr Gordon had kept a very tight group of people in charge of these arrangements, but that must be right?

 

532.          Mr Andrew:  I see the logic in what you are saying.  The reason I framed my submission to the Minister in the way I did is that I could not presume to usurp the Secretary of State’s decision, and until this was made public —

 

533.          Mr Campbell QC:  But am I right, as amongst the tight group around Mr Gordon, that it would be known before the announcement on 9 January?

 

534.          Mr Andrew:  I suspect you are probably right, but my memory is so hazy — everything was so truncated.  I think you are probably right.  I think, we felt that the Secretary of State was probably going to go with it.

 

535.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think if we were in any doubt about that we might put that doubt out of our minds by looking at the next paragraph on the next page, SE/2/1287.  I am sorry, this is where I have the advantage over you because I have the hard copy, but can we see the Secretary of State at paragraph 11 is to speak to Sir Alistair Grant before his public announcement.  Now he would hardly be speaking to Alistair Grant if he was choosing Leith, would he?

 

536.          Mr Andrew:  No, but in every cautious surveyor’s mind there is the possibility that they might not have agreed over the telephone.

 

537.          Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Andrew, I cannot think that it is conceivable that a press conference called for 9 January would be called unless all the highly experienced advisers were satisfied that a deal had been done.

 

538.          This is a political phone call, was it not, from the Head of the Scottish Office to the Head of S&N?

 

539.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, and I try to maintain a distance from political matters, obviously.

 

540.          Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Dewar, I think, said in his press announcement that he was delighted to have reached an agreement, and I think he may — I cannot find it now —but he may even have made reference to his conversations with Sir Alistair Grant, which is entirely understandable because the top man deals with the top man.

 

541.          I think that it would be 8 January, would it, that Scottish & Newcastle sent you a letter of intent to conclude a contract?

 

542.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, from Gordon Izatt.

 

543.          Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Izatt. I am not sure if we have that scanned, but we will certainly scan it in.  And shortly after that, missives were concluded, is that right?

 

544.          Mr Andrew:  Missives were concluded later.

 

545.          Mr Campbell QC:  Yes. Satisfactorily and on the terms which we have observed in the minutes?

 

546.          Mr Andrew:  Yes, they were satisfactorily concluded.

 

547.          Mr Campbell QC:  On these terms?

 

548.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.  I mean there was amplification of the terms and there was some significant negotiation, but yes, substantially on these heads;  Certainly nothing that required us to go back and ask our valuers if the valuation had shifted.

 

549.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did the price shift?

 

550.          Mr Andrew:  No.

 

551.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did the manner of payment of the price shift?

 

552.          Mr Andrew:  No.  One of the main areas of discussion was responsibility for ground conditions and that needed a little bit of work with the conveyancers.

 

553.          Mr Campbell QC:  How was the matter left in terms of responsibility for ground conditions?

 

554.          Mr Andrew:  Scottish & Newcastle would abate the price if certain problems were found with the ground conditions in a fixed period, I think it was six months after entry.  But they were responsible only for those ground works that would have been occasioned by a normal residential development of three or four storey tenements in that area.  But insofar as we were putting on a specialised building with specialised requirements that might require more extensive ground works, and those were not the responsibility of Scottish & Newcastle.

 

555.          Mr Campbell QC:  So things like tunnels and wells would remain with the Scottish Office?

 

556.          Mr Andrew:  Erm…

 

557.          Mr Stewart:  I am not sure that is very fair on the witness.  I do not think that he had involvement in detailed negotiations or missives, unless he can actually say that —

 

558.          Lord Fraser:  Just let us know if you were.

 

559.          Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Andrew, can you let us know? 

 

560.          Mr Andrew:  I was involved in some negotiations of principle, but not in the missives.

 

561.          Mr Campbell QC:  I do not need to have the detail.  I am just looking for the principle, since we are concerned in this Inquiry with cost.  You have already explained to me that the cost did not shift.

 

562.          Mr Andrew:  The value did not shift.

 

563.          Mr Campbell QC:  The value.  Well, but did the price shift?

 

564.          Mr Andrew:  No.  Sorry, the price did not shift.

 

565.          Mr Campbell QC:  And the staged manner of payment, which is contemplated —

 

566.          Mr Andrew:  No, the stage mode… the staging remained, yes. 

 

567.          Mr Campbell QC:  So is it fair to summarise it thus:  that there was time taken to conclude the missives so as to reflect differing responsibilities for different types of ground conditions?

 

568.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

569.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, after the conclusion of missives and the sale of ground at Holyrood to Scottish Ministers, did you have further involvement in the Scottish Parliament building project?

 

12.00

 

570.          Mr Andrew:  Only insofar as I helped with the acquisition of three dwellings in Reid’s Close.  I investigated the possibility of the Teague Homes site being available.  I had some responsibilities involved in bringing to a conclusion the Dharitable Trust's occupation, which was a licensee in S&N’s buildings.  I had to help sort out a waiver or superiority in favour of the City of Edinburgh Council.  That needed to be resolved, and the closure of the public conveniences also needed to be tidied up. 

 

571.          Mr Campbell QC:  So, all consequential property matters?

 

572.          Mr Andrew:  All consequentials, yes.

 

573.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you, Mr Andrew.   We are much obliged. 

 

574.          No, I am sorry. I am reminded about one matter.  Can you look at SE/2/831 please?  This is a minute signed by yourself, dated 16 October 1997? 

 

575.          Mr Andrew:  Yes. 

 

576.          Mr Campbell QC:  This is taking us back at little, Mr Andrew, I think, and records a meeting with Richard Emerson on 16 October, who you say described his Historic Scotland views as follows, and then there is a list of views in relation to aspects of the proposed development.  What can we understand at item 6 is meant by the expression “for the greater good”?

 

577.          Mr Andrew:  I think that some of the Scottish & Newcastle buildings were listed — I think it was category C — but I think that Historic Scotland’s view, as I recorded it there, was that if necessary, in order to preserve some of the more important buildings, they would be prepared to see them removed. 

 

578.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can we see that you record that this is not Richard Emerson’s patch, but you felt he was very keen on this scheme because it potentially preserved or enhanced the future of Queensberry House, for which the only alternative use is a hotel, and probably secure the future of St Andrew’s House?  That is an odd comment, is it not, considering the buildings are some distance apart? 

 

579.          Mr Andrew:  I think the first point about Queensberry House is I think Historic Scotland did see merit in it and great potential for its preservation.  The reference to St Andrew’s House, I am afraid, is lost in the mists of my memory, and although this was designed to prompt my memory, I am afraid I am just lost.  I cannot quite think what I was trying to remind myself of. 

 

580.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, we know the date of this meeting with Richard Emerson.  Was it before or after you had the submission of material from John Clement and Lewis & Hickey?

 

581.          I think that document that you are holding was sent in on the same day.  I just wondered if you had seen it before you had the meeting.

 

582.          Mr Andrew:  I honestly cannot remember whether I had it or not. 

 

583.          Mr Campbell QC:  Sir, thank you very much.  That is all I have for Mr Andrew. 

 

584.          Lord Fraser:  Just a couple of points you might help me with.  You were not actually a member of the project team.  Is that correct?

 

585.          Mr Andrew:  That is correct.  I went along for part of one meeting and the whole of another. 

 

586.          Lord Fraser:  The whole of another.  And Alistair Brown was a member?

 

587.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

588.          Lord Fraser:  And you were directly answerable to him?

 

589.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

590.          Lord Fraser:  So there were two occasions in which you were present for at least part of the time?

 

591.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

592.          Lord Fraser:  Did you, at about that time, have any direct dealings with EDI, who were the sort of free-standing development wing of the City Council?

 

593.          Mr Andrew:  I cannot remember having any direct dealings.  I think I may have taken telephone calls for information.  I think I remember seeing a file note that somebody had phoned up requiring further information and I certainly saw papers and proposals from them, but I do not remember direct dealings with EDI. 

 

594.          Lord Fraser:  From some of the correspondence that you would not necessarily have seen, which we had pointed up to us yesterday from Historical Scotland, there was some indication that EDI, in one way or another, were irritating or annoying the project team.  With your relatively informal, infrequent connection with the project team, were you ever aware of that sort of mode of irritation?

 

595.          Mr Andrew:  No.

 

596.          Lord Fraser:  Right.  Did they ever attempt to deal improperly with you?

 

597.          Mr Andrew:  No.

 

598.          Lord Fraser:  Or try to cut you off?

 

599.          Mr Andrew:  No. 

 

600.          Lord Fraser:  We, I am sure you are aware, we have heard evidence from Mr John Clement.  And if I have recorded his evidence correctly, his recollection of the train journey was that you and your colleagues were, in his words as I noted them, “struggling to secure a satisfactory site.”  Does that square with your recollection? 

 

601.          Mr Andrew:  My view is that he is probably inferring from the fact that I was still telling him that he should get in touch with Dr Gibbons.  I think the inference is that the book was not closed on the three sites.  I am not sure we would have used the word “struggling”, to be honest.

 

602.          Lord Fraser:  I can understand why, as it is a surveyor’s responsibility, how you might say to someone in the private sector “if you have got anything that you think might be suitable, let me know.”  But if you have actually narrowed it down by this stage, as I understand it, from 22 or 23 to three, I would have thought as a public official you would probably have played that pretty close to your chest.

 

603.          Mr Andrew:  From my memory, we knew there was discomfort amongst Ministers.  They were not excited by the three options that we had put before them.  There was extensive public debate about the three options.  As far as I knew, nobody had closed the book on the field of options, and given that Jones Lang Wootton were probably phoning round practices asking other firms if they had any sites that might meet the criteria, I did not really have any difficulty with an enquiry from the surveyor saying: “if I find something that meets the criteria, can I submit it?”  I would say “yes, by all means.”

 

604.          Lord Fraser:  It was really on that sort of basis that you proceeded?

 

605.          Mr Andrew:  Yes.

 

606.          Lord Fraser:  Thank you very much then.

 

607.          Mr Campbell QC:  Sir, there is one other matter, if I may.  I am sorry to come back a second time.  Can I show you SE/2/831A, Mr Andrew, please, a minute of 27 November 1997. It says it is from you to Mr Hume at Historic Scotland, 27 November 1997.  You say there that you are firming up your initial thoughts and impressions — that is obviously thoughts and impressions about Holyrood.

 

608.          “It would be helpful to know if S&N are accurately reflecting your views, and not omitting any of your concerns to present a more attractive case!  The historic facts appear beguiling, but are they correct?”

 

609.          What were you trying to do there?

 

610.          Mr Andrew:  I was wanting this document checked because although it appears like a sort of architect’s proposal, my view was that this was a very upmarket, high-class set of estate agent’s particulars making a pitch, and I wanted them checked.  I do not say that in any way to impugn the people who produced it, but representing my client, the Secretary of State, this was from an interested party and, you know, checks had to be made. 

 

611.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you send an enquiry letter of this kind to anyone else in relation to other aspects of the presentation by Scottish & Newcastle?

 

612.          Mr Andrew:  I circulated this, I think — and this is from memory — to Alastair Brown, I think to Robert Gordon, and I cannot find any trace, but it is inconceivable that I would have failed to send it to John Gibbons, and so the construction aspects would have been well looked after.  But because John Hume was in another building, I was writing and enclosing it with a document for his views.

 

613.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think I am right in saying that while this document concentrates on areas and the capacity of the site to accommodate something corresponding to your brief, it does not focus at all on the likely cost of construction of a Parliament.

 

614.          Mr Andrew:  No.

 

615.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you very much.  I do not, for the third time, have any more questions for you.  Much obliged.

 

616.          Lord Fraser:  Thank you, Mr Andrew.

 

617.          Mr Campbell QC:  Sir, would it be convenient to take five minutes?  Mr Emerson is here. 

 

618.          Lord Fraser:  Yes, we will take an adjournment for five minutes now.

 

Informal break at 12.13 pm.

 

Hearing resumed at 12.18 pm.

 

619.          Lord Fraser:  Before we resume, can I just address one set of remarks, particularly to the media.  I hope that it has been found that displaying the documents on these plasma screens has been helpful.  However, I am aware that some of those who have been looking at our web site have asked the question, where Mr Campbell has referred to one page in a document which may run to many pages as he has repeatedly said, we are immediately, or as soon as we can, putting up on the web site the page to which he has referred in evidence, but in the fullness of time, as and when we can, the whole of the document will be put on to the web site.  I think it will be appreciated that we are receiving literally thousands of pages of documentation, and it is a massive task trying to get all that documentation onto it, because it is not simply a matter of putting it straight on — we clearly have to read everything to make sure that nothing irrelevant or that might breach confidentiality appears on it, and that is a major task for the team that are supporting me.

 

620.          If it is all right by Mr Emerson, I think we are going to try and complete his evidence before lunch, if that might take a little bit past the usual time.  However, in view of the massive work that needs to be done on documents — either reading them or scanning them — I do not propose that we will sit this afternoon.  I think if we can finish before lunch, so much the better, and we will get on with other tasks that we have. 

 

621.          I should also indicate that next week the Inquiry will not be sitting, and we will be using that break to gather further evidence, to reflect on a lot of the evidence that we have heard so far, and to finalise the schedules for witnesses over the rest of this month and into next month.  And, as I have indicated, that will allow us time also to update as much as we can the web site. We will be sitting next on Monday 24 November.

 

622.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you Sir.

 

623.          Could I just endorse what you have said and underline that the receipt of thousands of pages of documents is as a result of the very close co-operation which has been displayed by all those of whom evidence has been requested and for which I, in particular, am most grateful. 

 

624.          Lord Fraser:  Thank you Mr Campbell.

 

625.          Mr Campbell QC:  Sir, the next witness for the Inquiry is Mr Richard Emerson.  Good afternoon, Mr Emerson, and thank you for coming to the Inquiry. 

 

626.          You are Richard Emerson.  You are now the Chief Inspector of Historic Buildings at Historic Scotland.  Previous to that, you were a Principal Inspector of Historic Buildings at Historic Scotland and its statutory predecessors, or ancestors, before it became a Government agency.

 

627.          Mr Richard Emerson (Chief Inspector of Historic Buildings, Historic Scotland):  That is right. 

 

628.          Mr Campbell QC:  And you have a background in fine art and architectural history, I think.

 

629.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

630.          Mr Campbell QC:  I wonder if you could begin, Mr Emerson please, by indicating your understanding of the particular role of Historic Scotland in advising on proposals for development by the Crown.  Yesterday we heard something of this from Mr Munro, but I am not quite satisfied that we heard as much as there is in relation to the parameters which guide your activity when asked to advise central Government on development proposals. 

 

631.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, there are basically three pieces of guidance on this.  The first is a circular, circular 21/84, ‘Crown Land and Crown Development’, and that requires Crown developers to submit notices of proposed intention to develop and applications for listed building clearance, as opposed to listed building consent, to the Planning Authority.  The Planning Authority is asked to advertise these in the normal way, as if they had been applications for listed building consent.  So it is a parallel courtesy process which Government is submitting itself to.

 

632.          The circular notes in paragraph 26 that the Scottish Development Department, now Historic Scotland’s Inspectorate of Historic Buildings, will be pleased to advise informally on what constitutes or affects character or on any other matters in connection with proposals affecting a listed building.

 

633.          Mr Campbell QC:  I think it is correct to understand, is it, that within Historic Scotland there is an Inspectorate of Historic Buildings and an Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments?

 

634.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

635.          Mr Campbell QC:  And of course you are colleagues, but you have separate responsibilities?

 

636.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

637.          Mr Campbell QC:  And you yourself as Chief Inspector have a team of territorial inspectors who carry out the function of historic building — listing, care and maintenance and so forth — across Scotland.

 

638.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

639.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you.  You said there were three pieces of guidance; you have dealt with the first. 

 

640.          Mr Emerson:  Well, that is the first, and that is the first chronologically as well.

 

641.          The second is a document of whose precise status I am not absolutely clear — it is not a circular — and it is the ‘Care of Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments by Government Departments in Scotland’.  This is a joint co-production by Historic Scotland and what was then the Department of National Heritage, which I think is now subsumed into the DCMS [Department for Culture, Media and Sport] which is a UK Department, in the UK and very small areas to do with the Lottery in Scotland, but nonetheless it does have UK responsibilities. 

 

642.          This is a sister document to, as I understand it, an English and Welsh one along similar lines, and it follows from the White Paper of 1990 ‘This Common Inheritance’ which itself followed on from the Rio Conference on Sustainability and things like that.  This sets out how the arrangements set out in circular 21/84 of some 10 years earlier. This document is either 1995 or 1996; it is coy as to its date of production, but that is when it appeared.  It sets out the responsibilities after a foreword by Ian Lang, who was then the Secretary of State for Scotland, who commends this document.  This sets out how Government bodies might approach the development affecting historic buildings and ancient monuments, and in paragraph 3.11.1 under ‘Work affecting Historic Buildings’ it says:

 

643.          “Departments should consult Historic Scotland early in the development of a project prior to seeking the Planning Authority’s clearance about any matter involving the repair, restoration or alteration of the fabric of a historic building.”

 

644.          Then two paragraphs further down it says:

 

645.          “A direct relationship should be established between the Department and the DCFP…”

 

646.          which is the departmental conservation focal point, which actually I think only in PSA [Property Search Agency] did such a person exist, and none such now exist, and then another acronym —

 

647.          “… the SCC…”,

 

648.          which is the Specialist Conservation Consultant who in normal circumstances will be the architect, but might conceivably be a painting restorer or a furniture restorer or something like that.

 

649.          “… and Historic Scotland.”

 

650.          So, a direct relationship should be established between the Department, their consultant and Historic Scotland, and regular contact will always help decision making on general matters. That sets out briefly a rather different arrangement from that set out in the circular where Historic Scotland —its predecessor, but the historic buildings inspector — will be pleased to give advice if asked; in other words, would stand ready, but you do not have to, as a Department, consult us. To this one, where Ian Lang commends a document where Government Departments are encouraged to, early on, seek advice from Historic Scotland.  And the reason for this is to ensure that Government sets a good example on its own estate by developing schemes which fully take on board the conservation needs of its buildings.

 

651.          Mr Campbell QC:  So we are still short of anything compulsory, though.

 

652.          Mr Emerson:  Oh yes; there is no compulsion, even now, if you see what I mean. 

 

653.          Mr Campbell QC:  And are you going to go on to talk about the third piece of guidance?

 

654.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.  The third piece of guidance is the framework document which sets out Historic Scotland’s role as an Executive Agency.  The one that was in operation at the date under consideration is that of October 1994, which in the words of the then Secretary of State:

 

655.          “spells out clearly the responsibilities of the three main parties —  myself (Secretary of State), the Secretary of the Scottish Office Environment Department and the Chief Executive of Historic Scotland.”

 

656.          The document sets out the mission:

 

657.          “Historic Scotland will discharge; the Secretary of State for Scotland’s functions in relation to the built heritage; its mission is to safeguard the nation’s built heritage and promote its understanding and enjoyment.”

 

658.          The duties of the Chief Executive include:

 

659.          “providing, after appropriate consultation and subject to paragraph 2.6, advice and information to Ministers and other parts of the Scottish Office on policy on the built heritage in Scotland, as well as discharging the Secretary of State’s functions in relation to the built heritage in Scotland.”

 

660.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you; that is helpful.  Now, I am sure you can readily see situations arising where developers, whether it be the Crown or private developers, want to achieve a result, and for perfectly good historical or conservation reasons, the agency Historic Scotland puts a hand up and says: “now pause, think about that.  We would prefer that you do it this way.”  So are you seen generally as an irritation to the prospects of Crown development because you have, if I may put it unkindly, a purist view — perhaps even an impractical view — of the benefits of development as they are put forward. 

 

661.          Mr Emerson:  I accept the caricature exists as a caricature.

 

662.          Mr Campbell QC:  That is how it is intended.

 

663.          Mr Emerson:  And I hope in today’s evidence to explain how, in fact, I think we do attempt to balance practical and other wider needs against the need to protect the best of the built heritage.  I mean, I believe that we are not intentionally irritating, and do not obstruct, and do balance needs.  I suppose in any given circumstance, we are likely, on one end of the balancing, to be less likely to want to see something destroyed than the developing Department.  So as we move towards an agreement, it requires give and take on both sides; and we would be, with reluctance, giving away bits of buildings, if you see what I mean.

 

12.30 pm

 

664.          Mr Campbell QC:  You talked, in this short summary of the guidance documents, about the Secretary of State’s responsibilities, and that is an expression, which appears, I think, in all three of them in one form or another.  Clearly, this is not just a subjective matter — the application of conservation principles to existing historic buildings of whatever grade.  So, where do you look for guidance for the application of, how shall I say, uniform standards across the board when considering development proposals?

 

665.          Mr Emerson:  Obviously, a number of developments are generic: they crop up time and time again — people putting conservatories on the backs of their houses, satellite dishes on their chimneys, whatever — they are a predictable form of development; they occur in large numbers and policy can be framed, both at local authority and at Government level, to set out how these should be handled.  So there is no real difficulty in setting out policies, and these are set out in the memorandum for a whole raft. The ‘Memorandum of Guidance on Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas’ is a large and fairly forbidding-looking volume, which has an Appendix that is now bigger, I think, than the main text itself —

 

666.          Mr Campbell QC:  I am sorry; we must pause there so that we understand what you are talking about.  The Memorandum of Guidance is a document devised and issued by Historic Scotland?

 

667.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, under a circular.

 

668.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you.  That is what I was going to ask you. So it has the force of a circular, but it is not in the proper sense, legislation?

 

669.          Mr Emerson:  No.  It sets out our policies.  It gives general guidance on how local authorities, whom it is primarily intended should deal with listed buildings, should compulsorily purchase something — that sort of thing.  And then at the back, it tries to answer the tricky question which is the test required in legislation as to works affecting the character of a listed building will require consent.  In order to define what character is, this section has grown in the various permutations; successive publications of the thing has grown to cover satellite dishes, conservatories, subdivision of rooms — that sort of thing. 

 

670.          Clearly, beyond the generic, you then get classes of application which can also have policy applied to them: not demolishing buildings in a conservation area unless firm proposals for redevelopment have been agreed and the contract let, to avoid gap sites appearing, that sort of general policy.  Beyond that again you fall into an area where the memorandum cannot anticipate particular forms of development because they are too specialised.  And here, the inspector is… when first confronted by such an application on their own, must go back to the office or will often go back to the office and consult with colleagues and senior colleagues as to how they think this should be best addressed.  That is the only way we can achieve consistency.

 

671.          Mr Campbell QC:  To summarise that: you have published guidance which has the force of a circular, but not legislation, and that is, I think, commonly available to both local authorities and your own team?

 

672.          Mr Emerson:  It is on the web site.

 

673.          Mr Campbell QC:  It is on the Historic Scotland website?

 

674.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

675.          Mr Campbell QC:  And, I assume, available, therefore, to the developing community as well?

 

676.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

677.          Mr Campbell QC:  Does that serve you adequately as a tool for decision-making, ultimately?

 

678.          Mr Emerson:  I think I would have to say yes.  We are in the process of revising it again; and we are looking at — and it is a detailed point — the advantage of having it embedded within the Scottish Executive’s Policy Guidance series.  It would be over having a memorandum, which, by its very nature, sounds antiquated and difficult to rank as guidance.  So, I think, then, in that sense, it is not adequate.  I think, in providing a policy framework for Historic Scotland and others to work within, it has proved useful.  It was the first in UK terms, it has been widely emulated — England and Wales and Northern Ireland all have similar documents now.  So, yes I think, it is useful.

 

679.          Mr Campbell QC:  You mentioned, in quite an interesting answer there, that you are considering having it assimilated within the current series of planning policy statement, which are issued from time to time by the Scottish Executive.  Do you see any advantage in standing apart from the general run of planning policy, and having, as it were, your own publication, your own premises, your own people who are standing apart from Planning Division?

 

680.          Mr Emerson:  I see advantage in the actual people standing apart from Planning Division, because there are separate skills involved, but I see the continuing existence of the ‘Memorandum’ as being another source of confusion for people as to precisely the relationship of Historic Scotland to the Executive.  Since we are part of the Executive, and indistinguishable except in minor issues of pay and conditions of service, from mainline civil servants, I think it would be more helpful if our guidance was seen as being Government guidance.

 

681.          Mr Campbell QC:  And yet, Mr Emerson, you have to apply statutory and non-statutory criteria to proposals, which may themselves emanate from central Government.  So, in a real sense, you are a policeman as well as a colleague, are you not?

 

682.          Mr Emerson:  Well, we are advisory; we are not a policeman.  Under current circumstances, when we are giving advice to colleagues in central Government we are merely giving advice because they are still technically immune, although they have, as a courtesy, offered to surrender that immunity to a process where they are judged by the local authority.  But, of course, they reserve the right to say, “I do not care what you think, we are going to press on.”

 

683.          Mr Campbell QC:  Do you have recourse in that event?

 

684.          Mr Emerson:  No.

 

685.          Mr Campbell QC:  So, despite being a devolved agency of Government, you would say that you are —

 

686.          Mr Emerson:  Well, we are not a devolved agency of Government; we are not devolved.

 

687.          Mr Campbell QC:  My fault.

 

688.          Mr Emerson:  Well, I mean that depends on what you mean by devolved, I think; but we are not very distinct from Government.

 

689.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, we had better clear this up too.  Historic Scotland is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Executive?

 

690.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

691.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, in terms of its separation from mainstream civil servants, to use your own expression, what does that mean?

 

692.          Mr Emerson:  It means that some of us get paid less.

 

693.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, I am sure that there is more to it than that.  There would have to be a point in giving Historic Scotland Executive Agency status other than to pay you less.

 

694.          Mr Emerson:  I think the idea behind the Executive Agency was to create something that was not a quango.  A quango, or non-departmental public body, is separate from Government and has the power to criticise Government.  English Heritage is such a creature.  The creation of non-departmental bodies, of which English Heritage was in the first wave, was for reasons that I, as a very minor civil servant could only guess at, were not regarded as a success.  So head-scratching must have gone on to achieve the same result with more strings attached to Ministers — Ministers having more of a relationship with the detached body. 

 

695.          The object of the detached body was to allow those agencies, which were capable of raising money to do so.  Historic Scotland obviously manages Edinburgh Castle, to name an obvious example.  It can raise money, it can reduce its demand upon the Executive for funding, as it raises more money from the Castle and similar properties — the ideal, I suppose, being a completely free-standing organisation that requires no public funding in the sense of money from the Executive  — which stage we have not yet got to, but we are about halfway there.  So that was the object of setting up Historic Scotland: to give it a commercial edge to make it raise money.  My side of Historic Scotland has no commercial edge and has no capacity for raising money and remains a sort of boring Civil Service job.

 

696.          Mr Campbell QC:  I am sure it is not always boring.

 

697.          Mr Emerson:  No, this is a less boring moment.

 

698.          Mr Campbell QC:  Yes.  So Historic Scotland is, in a sense, in a slightly contradictory situation, because on the one hand you are saying, “We are part of the Executive”, or “We are subject to Ministerial direction”, and on the other hand you are saying, “We are encouraged to be free-standing economically and try to raise enough money to wash our face in the books.”

 

699.          Mr Emerson:  Exactly.

 

700.          Mr Campbell QC:   Let me put to you a hypothetical situation to get your response. Suppose that a Government Department was promoting a development which for some reason had become the subject of a public inquiry and had serious conservation issues involved in it.  In the public inquiry you would have the promoter — the Department of whatever — no doubt, third party objectors and perhaps the local authority as well.  Is it conceivable that in that situation Historic Scotland could appear against a Government Department?

 

701.          Mr Emerson:  No.

 

702.          Mr Campbell QC:  Absolutely not?

 

703.          Mr Emerson:  Absolutely not.  I think Historic Scotland’s objections would have been notified to their Minister, or their Minister would have talked to the promoting Department’s Minister; a decision would have been made; and if Historic Scotland’s Minister had acceded to a new third airport, or whatever it was, then Historic Scotland would have fallen in line and sought only to mitigate the effect of the third airport internally within the Executive.  So, we cannot challenge Ministers — no.

 

704.          Mr Campbell QC:  So, it would be wrong for this Inquiry to view Historic Scotland as entirely detached from the Executive?

 

705.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, it would be right to view us as being, in theory at least, entirely embedded within the Executive. 

 

706.          Mr Campbell QC:  But fulfilling certain well defined statutory functions?

 

707.          Mr Emerson:  Non-statutory functions; purely advisory functions.

 

708.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, is that right?  Does not Historic Scotland have statutory responsibilities under the archaeological areas, the Ancient Monuments Act and also under the Planning Act?

 

709.          Mr Emerson:  Not under the Planning Act, I do not think; but under the archaeological thing, you may well be right — it is not for me.

 

710.          Mr Campbell QC:  OK.  Can we turn to Holyrood, Mr Emerson, please? Can I ask you what you were doing in May 1997?

 

711.          Mr Emerson:  I was at work, as it were; and I find that I spoke to Anthony Andrew about the use of the Old Royal High School.  I should say that most —

 

712.          Mr Campbell QC:  Excuse me for interrupting you.  You were a Principal Inspector?

 

713.          Mr Emerson:  I was a Principal Inspector.

 

714.          Mr Campbell QC:  With territorial responsibilities?

 

715.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, I had territorial responsibility for Edinburgh — it sounds a bit odd, this, but — Edinburgh, north of the railway line. I mean Edinburgh north of Princes Street, Princes Street Gardens, down to Leith, I think, at that stage.

 

716.          Mr Campbell QC:  And did you speak to Mr Andrew in May 1997 about the prospective use of the Old Royal High School as a chamber or premises for the Parliament?

 

717.          Mr Emerson:  My evidence is almost entirely reconstructed from paper; it hardly relies at all on memory, which is virtually absent for this period, I regret to say.  I do not remember this, but I find that I did it — and I entirely believe that I did it.

 

718.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look at HS/1/155, please?  This is the second page of a minute from Mr Andrew, who we have just heard from, to Mr Alistair Brown.  You are mentioned towards the foot of the second page:

 

719.          “I have spoken to Richard Emerson of Historic Scotland.  His initial response is that there should be few problems if we do not alter the exterior.”

 

720.          Was that response given after an inspection?

 

721.          Mr Emerson:  No, I do not think so.  I get the impression this is a telephone call, and it is recording a telephone call.

 

722.          Mr Campbell QC:  Would it be safe to assume that you would have some knowledge of the building?

 

723.          Mr Emerson:  I have been in the building several times.

 

724.          Mr Campbell QC:  Had you at that time been in the building?

 

725.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

726.          Mr Campbell QC:  In June did you go with Mr Munro to a meeting with Brian Clark and Barbara Doig in relation to St Andrew’s House?

 

727.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

12.45 pm

 

728.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is there a draft minute in that regard at HS/1/180?

 

729.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

730.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can we see there in the second paragraph a reference back to a meeting of 6 June involving yourself?  Interestingly, there:

 

731.          “when we were initially informed of the Secretary of State’s view that the Royal High School would not be able to accommodate the Parliament… we were asked what our reaction might be to the infilling of the courtyard… we responded constructively to that suggestion.”

 

732.          This is your Chief Executive writing.

 

733.          Mr Emerson:  This, I think, is me writing.  In fact, I mean, I drafted this for him.  He amended the draft and sent it on, but this section is my draft for him.

 

734.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you take a view about the prospects for St Andrew’s House, the back of St Andrew’s House embracing a parliamentary chamber?

 

735.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, we thought that that was something that could be explored.

 

736.          Mr Campbell QC:  You would not go further than that at that stage?

 

737.          Mr Emerson:  I think… it says here we responded constructively, so it was probably less cautious than that — constructively.  I have no recollection of the meeting, so I cannot give you words that were said.  This is the closest I can get to it, and I would say that we responded constructively.

 

738.          Mr Campbell QC:  Were you invited to take part in any part of the process of site selection and the narrowing down from a long list to a shortlist of candidate sites?

 

739.          Mr Emerson:  I was not and I do not think Historic Scotland was.

 

740.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you look at HS/1/158, your document 3, Mr Emerson.  The working group appears to have met on 14 August.  There is an Annex attached, which we do not have here but we have seen it elsewhere.  Three sites are identified.  Planning Services have been:

 

741.          “asked to take the lead in assessing the three options against criteria”,

 

742.          and you were asked for a response by lowsin time on 19 August.

 

743.          Mr Emerson:  I do not know what that means.

 

744.          Mr Campbell QC:  You do not know what “lowsin time” means, or you do not know what —

 

745.          Mr Emerson:  I do not know what “lowsin time” means, I am afraid to say.  I can guess what it means.

 

746.          Mr Campbell QC:  Some of us might.  What were you being asked for here, and did you comply?

 

747.          Mr Emerson:  I did.  I was being asked to comment in relation to the brief which is contained in Annex A of the document which I have in front of me, e.g. on costs impact on timetable, access physical surroundings, environmental impact, local economic impact, impact on Scottish Office and security considerations.  So I was given a menu, as it were. 

 

748.          I then, reconstructing this from our files, I think must have spoken to Graeme Purves on the phone — that was just covering a weekend; the 15^th is a Friday and therefore Monday is the 18^th, so there is rather less time that there would appear here.  So I spoke to Graeme Purves on the phone, I would guess, because he then faxed through a draft which embodies clearly an input by me, but which includes some other strange things which have now appeared, including a funicular and a monorail link, and I then respond in turn to that.

 

749.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could we just take these one at a time, if you do not mind?

 

750.          Mr Emerson:  Sorry.

 

751.          Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Purves’s response is HS/1/159.

 

752.          Mr Emerson:  I think I may have an additional document, of which I have brought three copies, which is a copy of a fax on our files, dated 19 August, which mentions the monorail and the funicular, which you were expressing interest in the other day.

 

753.          Lord Fraser:  I thought you did.

 

754.          Mr Emerson:  I expressed no interest in them.

 

755.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can I just understand, is your document 4, document HS/1/159?

 

756.          Mr Emerson:  My document 4 is the final draft, but there is an intermediate one which is dated — I have difficulty with the date “18^th” at the top of draft, because I have what appears to be an intermediate draft of the 19^th, and my own minute is of the 19^th.

 

757.          Mr Campbell QC:  Will you have a look at SE/2/414 and see if you can identify it? 

 

758.          Mr Emerson:  That is my minute of the 19^th, which is my production.

 

759.          Mr Campbell QC:  That has been sent on by Mr Purves to Alistair Brown, has it?

 

760.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.  My production 5.  The intermediate fax from Graeme Purves that I am referring to is a version of Annex A, with Annex A, which is the list of the menu, and then contains details of the three sites;  Morrison Street, with three maps; Calton Hill, with no map —

 

761.          Mr Campbell QC:  Yes, I have got it here.

 

762.          Mr Emerson:  And that is it.

 

763.          Mr Campbell QC:  Are the alterations material or not?

 

764.          Mr Emerson:  No, it is just that this is where the funicular and the monorail pop up out of nowhere, as it were, and I obviously felt that I needed to swat them.

 

765.          Lord Fraser:  I am not really interested in the funicular.

 

766.          Mr Emerson:  No, I realise that.

 

767.          Lord Fraser:  What I think I was concerned about is, you — perfectly reasonably — have some comment on these things and say one is a hare-brained idea or something like that, but what I was more concerned about is, at a later date, your misgivings about some details, which seem to be being used by the Scottish Office to present Historic Scotland as having a more generalised objection to what was being proposed for the Calton Hill, when it did not seem to me, from reading your contributions, that that was, in fact, a proper representation of your position.

 

768.          Mr Emerson:  No, I agree with you.

 

 

769.          Lord Fraser:  Thank you.

 

 

770.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could we look at HS/1/171, your document 5?  This is you responding back to Mr Purves.

 

771.          Mr Emerson:  It is. Following a phone call, probably.

 

772.          Mr Campbell QC:  You talk about maximum civic presence and you talk about you noting,

 

773.          “with surprise… the assessment does not identify the site as providing the opportunity to create a purpose-built Parliament representing the best of modern architecture.”

 

774.          Mr Emerson:  In the fax I have that quality is identified as one of the advantages of the Haymarket site, which is then called the Morrison site, so my point is that other sites have been identified as having this as their unique selling feature, as it were, whereas I thought that this applied equally, if not more so, to Calton Hill.

 

775.          Mr Campbell QC:  Could you be accused of stepping out of your jurisdiction in looking ahead for a project which is beautifully designed modern architecture rather than simply focusing on the conservation issues?

 

776.          Mr Emerson:  I think this would be affecting the setting and in the immediate environs of two major A listed buildings.  I think that, if you were to put something there, there is obviously a choice between putting a pastiche building — it would be a very difficult pastiche building that attempted to pastiche both 1820 and 1930.  I think I am flagging up that this ought to be modern, in my view, and I think I had in mind something like the Louvre Pyramid, for instance, which is a modern statement in an old context.  I think that is the sort of thing I had in mind.

 

777.          Mr Campbell QC:  You say, just at the foot of that screen:

 

778.          “I am unclear as to where the monorail would run but this seems a hare-brained suggestion.”

 

779.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, I regret saying that, but I would say they should be more cautious.

 

780.          Mr Campbell QC:  Were these ideas coming from Mr Purves?

 

781.          Mr Emerson:  No.  I think they are an aggregation of ideas coming from the City Council, from ourselves and from various others.  I think he is co-ordinating a response.  I do not know about the City Council, but there is a slight City Council feel about the funicular and the monorail, to me, but I may be completely wrong.  I have no idea where they came from.

 

782.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you have contact with Mr Wall of EDI to discuss his proposals?

 

783.          Mr Emerson:  I did.  I was asked by Graeme Munro to go and meet Ian Wall.  Ian Wall had rung him up, and I was asked to go.  Graeme Munro explained that he had a very full diary and could I go in his place to hear Ian Wall’s presentation.  And I went.

 

784.          Mr Campbell QC:  And was that presentation brought to Historic Scotland for you?

 

785.          Mr Emerson:  No, I think I went to EDI.  I cannot be sure, but I think I did.

 

786.          Mr Campbell QC:  Mr Munro asks you at the end of the letter:

 

787.          “… not to let yourself be drawn by Mr Wall to speculate on the likely eventual choice or the reasons for it.”

 

788.          Mr Emerson:  No.

 

789.          Mr Campbell QC:  He says —

 

790.          “In particular we should not reveal any of the internal Scottish Office considerations.”

 

791.          I should have asked Mr Munro about this yesterday, and I apologise to him for not doing so.  Do you know what he had in his mind?

 

792.          Mr Emerson:  I do not know how public the three sites were at this stage.  Maybe it was that — I do not know, I am afraid.

 

793.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you on 21 August go with Mr Lawrie, one of your colleagues, to a meeting with Alistair Brown’s team?

 

794.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, I did.

 

795.          Mr Campbell QC:  What for?

 

796.          Mr Emerson:  All I know is what I say in the letter that I drafted for Graeme Munro on 26 September 1997, which would appear to be discussing our view of what constraints there might be on the St Andrew’s House scheme as opposed to a scheme in the middle of the road or involving the Old Royal High School. This summarises the constraints that we would be placing or advising against.  The grammar is all wrong, but these are the things we were worried about.   These are things, in fact, that we had expressed concern about, following the perfectly normal role as set out in the care of historic buildings and things, under the St Andrew’s House refurbishment project, which was running along in advance of, and slightly in parallel, with this.  There was a proposal to open-plan 80%-plus of St Andrew’s House, and we had suggested that the front rooms on the first and second floors, I think, of St Andrew’s House to Regent Road, should be left cellular and that the conference rooms, which are like something out of a pre-war liner — all walnut and all the original furnishings and lamps and things — they are splendid and should be retained.  I think that is three or four rooms on the front of the third floor and the Secretary of State’s room on the top floor, looking out to the south.  That comprises a tiny fraction of the building.

 

797.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you.  Did you draft a minute for Mr Munro, which we see at HS/l/180 on 26 September?

 

798.          Mr Emerson:  I did, yes.

 

799.          Mr Campbell QC:  Which he seems to have sent without serious alteration at HS/l/183.

 

800.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.  He added one paragraph.

 

801.          Mr Campbell QC:  What gave rise to this?

 

802.          Mr Emerson:  Again, I am dependent on this for the record, but I have a fuzzy memory of this, in that I know that it happened.  I was at a meeting in the City Council and I am afraid I cannot remember who with, but I can remember leaving the meeting and phoning up — because I thought this was a matter of some importance and was confidential — leaving the room and being given a desk and a phone in a secretary’s room and ringing Graeme Munro to say, “what should we do under these circumstances?” and I think Graeme Munro’s interpolation into this minute records that.

 

803.          Mr Campbell QC:  That is the interpolation where?

 

804.          Mr Emerson:  Well, I think it is in one of the last paragraphs.

 

805.          Mr Campbell QC:  He says that you were “sufficiently concerned”. Is that right?

 

806.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

807.          Mr Campbell QC:  Paragraph 6, sorry it is the next document; HS/1/184 is the page.

 

808.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, paragraph 6. That is where mostly… well, there is a big chunk of Graeme Munro in there.

 

809.          Mr Campbell QC:  Is that the passage?  “Mr Emerson was under pressure” and “recognising the sensitivity of the issue” and so forth?

 

1.00 pm

 

810.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

811.          Mr Campbell QC:  And what was being said, Mr Emerson?

 

812.          Mr Emerson:  Well, I must rely on this minute where I quote the same day. I come back to the office and I draft this minute.  Obviously it is careful, the person was not named, but is identified to me as a senior Scottish Office civil servant.  But then, I mean, that could be almost anybody. Scottish Office civil servants are always identified as senior. I shall be identified as senior in the papers tomorrow — I am not, so it does not really narrow the field.

 

813.          Mr Campbell QC:  Was Alan Robertson at the meeting that you were at?

 

814.          Mr Emerson:  No, Alan Robertson was not at the meeting.

 

815.          Mr Campbell QC:  He was not.

 

816.          Mr Emerson:  No.

 

817.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you see a document which reflected the views attributed —

 

818.          Mr Emerson:  No, no.

 

819.          Mr Campbell QC:  Sorry, reported by Alan Roberston?

 

820.          Mr Emerson:  I think it is more than an off-the-cuff remark. The City’s position was firming up from memory at this period in favour of the city centre location. I was in the City Council offices on a very regular basis — two, three, four times a week — and whether I was hauled in, as it were, to explain why Historic Scotland appeared to be a major constraint in the City’s ambitions for the Parliament to be in the city centre or whether it was raised with me, but it was in relation to the City’s disappointment that Historic Scotland was not on board, as it were.

 

821.          Mr Campbell QC:  You have explained that you do not have a clear memory of it, but looking back on it, were you being awkward in relation to the Royal High School or St Andrew’s House?

 

822.          Mr Emerson:  Was I or Historic Scotland being awkward?

 

823.          Mr Campbell QC:  Historic Scotland. Sorry, you collectively.

 

824.          Mr Emerson:  No. I think we were very anxious to appear anything but awkward and, indeed, to appear to be anything but awkward. This was a new Secretary of State, and I think we wanted Historic Scotland to demonstrate its ability to engage with these sorts of problems constructively — the very point you made at the very beginning of my discussion.

 

825.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did this story run and run or did it simply die the death with this minute?

 

826.          Mr Emerson:  We have an answer from Robert Gordon, or at least Graeme Munro had an answer from Robert Gordon.

 

827.          Mr Campbell QC:  We saw that yesterday, I think.

 

828.          Mr Emerson:  And mentioned in the papers of press coverage. I cannot recollect the press coverage, but I wonder whether Donald Gorrie’s parliamentary question later on reflects something of this. I do not know. I do not think it ran and ran. It has sprouted legs more recently though, which I think is regrettable — I mean in this Inquiry.

 

829.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, simply as a matter of history, Mr Emerson, we have to see what the facts are.

 

830.          Mr Emerson:  I fully understand that, but it has been taken that this is evidence of a

 

831.          “view into the world of dirty tricks”

 

832.          as ‘The Scotsman’ called it this morning, and I do not feel that it is a view into the world of dirty tricks. I think it is a view into a world where Historic Scotland’s role was not fully understood and where papers were written where the difficulties of old buildings are constantly referred to, and Historic Scotland’s views are not often reported in the text. So somebody reading them might have assumed that the difficulties that were repeatedly referred to in all these briefings to Ministers that these things actually referred to further difficulties with Historic Scotland.

 

833.          Mr Campbell QC:  And you are talking about internal minutes, are you, going up to Ministers?

 

834.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, I mean, these are things I did not see at the time because I was quite low in the food chain at this point.  I have seen them since. And there is quite often the caveat that in looking at Calton Hill you should bear in mind that there are A-listed buildings here and there will be problems with consents and things like that. It is not a big leap to go from a comment that there are A-listed buildings here and there are problems with consent, to imagining where the problem with consent might lie — and that is Historic Scotland, whereas the more upbeat advice that we were giving is not found in those documents.

 

835.          Mr Campbell QC:  The enthusiasm, for example, for a modern building?

 

836.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

837.          Mr Campbell QC:  As an example of that, might I look at document HS/1/186?  This is a memo from Mr Munro to Dr Gibbons, and you are copied into it, as is also your colleague Mr Hume. What is this about?

 

838.          Mr Emerson: Well, there had clearly been a meeting, and they are discussing building a chamber.  This is the Chamber in the middle of Regent Road proposal, and one of the disadvantages is that the road up to the top of Calton Hill, which was used by coaches, tourist buses, which runs behind the Royal High School, would require to be closed, closed off or blocked off. I am commenting from the position of having had some involvement in the City’s lottery bid for Calton Hill, and I give some background information there that the City has a desire, I think, to reduce access to the top of Calton Hill and to explore alternative methods of bringing visitors to the top of the hill.

 

839.          Mr Campbell QC:  And I think we can see, can we, in the third paragraph that you do come down and express a preference, given the options you were being offered?

 

840.          Mr Emerson:  We do indeed.

 

841.          Mr Campbell QC:  A single-site solution.

 

842.          Mr Emerson:  Yes. There is more than one of us there, is there not? I do not recollect whether we all said in unison that we had a preference for a single-site solution, but Historic Scotland’s preference was for the single-site solution.

 

843.          Mr Campbell QC:  Was that a solution for a chamber?  Can we just see where we are going to put that?

 

844.          “within the shell of the southern courtyard block of St Andrew’s House”.

 

845.          Mr Emerson: At this point it is still in the southern courtyard block of St Andrew’s House, yes, but these are sketch proposals. I do not think they were not immovable, as we were not going to go straight from the sketch solution showing the thing in the courtyard block to building it, so I think we were talking about principle here.

 

846.          Mr Campbell QC:  And you look at that again on the next page, HS/1/187, with:

 

847.          “a proposal to demolish the southern courtyard”.

 

848.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

849.          Mr Campbell QC:  Which you reject.

 

850.          Mr Emerson:  That suggestion seemed to me to be rather drastic, and I am trying to reel back, I think, at this point on this overgenerous concession that appears to have been made by one of my colleagues.

 

851.          Mr Campbell QC:  Can you explain to me what we are to take from the letter HS/1/188, your document 12?

 

852.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, I have puzzled over that.

 

853.          Mr Campbell QC:  I understand, of course, that you are not either the sender or the recipient of this letter.

 

854.          Mr Emerson:  No.

 

855.          Mr Campbell QC:  Clearly a reference to “our meeting” may not have included you.

 

856.          Mr Emerson:  No.

 

857.          Mr Campbell QC:  But Dr Gibbons is saying his opinion of building costs for St Andrew’s House with an integral debating chamber would be reduced by £5 million. Are you able to shed any light on that?

 

858.          Mr Emerson:  No. I mean, I am delighted to see that our intervention reduced the costs of the Holyrood project — or would have done — but I am afraid I cannot explain quite how it did that. I can confirm that I think I was not at the “our meeting”, and this is probably reflecting the same meeting as we have just discussed immediately previously — the meeting with John Gibbons, but I cannot recollect what it was. There must have been an assumption that Historic Scotland would be looking for something that was going to be quite costly and that they would have to be fobbed off with this, and we must have said that we did not need to be fobbed off with whatever it was and that reduced it by £5 million, but I cannot think what that would be.

 

859.          Mr Campbell QC:  However the case may be, the upper estimate for building at St Andrew’s House in whatever format is put here at £78·8 million.

 

860.          Mr Emerson:  Yes, I know that.

 

861.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, this is about 10 days, as we now know, after Holyrood has emerged.  We can be sure, can we, that they are not talking about Holyrood here?

 

862.          Mr Emerson:  I hope we can be sure of that. I thought I did not hear about Holyrood until November, but the minute that you produced just at the end of Mr Andrew’s evidence shows that I clearly met him on 16 October, and I suspect that — although I have very little recollection of that — I suspect that that is the first I hear of Holyrood. So, I think this does not refer to Holyrood. I think this is the meeting which we have just discussed about the Chamber and reeling back from Mr Lawrie’s suggestion about demolishing the whole of the south courtyard and building afresh, and I think this is what we are talking about here.

 

863.          Mr Campbell QC: I do not want to leave this quite yet. Could you go to the second page of this letter, HS/1/189? Mr Roberston, who we will remember is a partner in Jones Lang Wootton, who we learned this morning were commissioned advisers to the Secretary of State — commissioned through Mr Andrew who gave evidence that he had done that this morning — are saying now to their clients:

 

864.          “We recommend that a statement from Historic Scotland should be obtained as to the type of development which they would consider to be appropriate. Historic Scotland have legitimate concerns which would constrain the type of development which could be carried out... we feel that it is important that the Scottish Office has a clear understanding of these.”

 

865.          Mr Emerson:  Well, I have read this.

 

866.          Mr Campbell QC:  Given your evidence of where you sit as between the Executive and the outside world, and closer to the Executive than the outside world from your account of it, this is an odd passage. I wonder if you can comment on it.

 

867.          Mr Emerson:  I have looked at this and I have puzzled about it, and the conclusion that I have come to is that it depends on what briefing Alan Robertson was given.  I obviously had no part in briefing him, but assuming he was given such background papers as were thought to be necessary — and I am sure a list exists of those — I take it that he was reading that there were A-listed buildings on the site and that there were difficulties in consent and delay, and delay would be occasioned by the necessity for consent and all the rest of it. So he is reading a series of background papers which appear to suggest that dealing with old buildings is difficult and he is not getting the rather more upbeat advice which Historic Scotland is giving to a variety of people within the Scottish Office.

 

868.          One of the difficulties is, of course, that we are giving advice to a variety of people: there is Brian Clark; there is John Gibbons; there is Graeme Munro advice to Robert Gordon; and there is me talking to Anthony Andrew. So there is not, as it were, one paper from Historic Scotland setting out our view which is clearly batched. You can reconstruct our position, as indeed I have and you are. But clearly what was available to Mr Robertson was not the full Inquiry papers dealing with this period; he was given, by somebody, what they thought was necessary and, presumably a verbal briefing. I can only assume that the verbal briefing combined with the documents he was given led him to believe that Historic Scotland was posing a difficulty.

 

869.          He then rang up Historic Scotland and got me, because we had dealt with each other before, and he got a restatement of this upbeat position.  He found that tallied rather awkwardly with what he had been led to believe was Historic Scotland’s view.  So, not wanting to believe that he had been told anything untrue by anybody, he reflects both positions: both the position that Historic Scotland has genuine and legitimate concerns which have been reported to him and he also reflects at length — covering his position admirably, I think, and virtually verbatim as it were this conversation with me.  So he throws the ball back to his employers, saying, “There seems to be a problem with Historic Scotland, and you will need to sort it out and get a written statement as to what their position is.” 

 

870.          Mr Campbell QC:  So, standing outside the organisation, he perhaps is doing what Mr Andrew aspired for him, which was to look at the process from the outside and tell them where they were going wrong.  You heard that evidence.

 

1.15 pm

 

871.          Mr Emerson:  I did, and there is a suggestion here that Historic Scotland and the Executive need to get their act together and agree what Historic Scotland’s position is. 

 

872.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did he accurately reflect your attitude in the last paragraph of this page? 

 

873.          Mr Emerson:  From “On reflection”. 

 

874.          Mr Campbell QC:  Yes. 

 

875.          Mr Emerson: Yes.

 

876.          Mr Campbell QC: And then over the page and the first sentence or two at the top of the page.  Can you read that?

 

877.          Mr Emerson:  Yes. 

 

878.          Mr Campbell QC:  It reads: 

 

879.          “With regard to the front parts of St Andrew’s House —

 

880.          Mr Emerson:  That is the bit that I ran through very quickly a few minutes ago.  This is the cellular accommodation on the first and second floors fronting on to Regent Road, the conference rooms and the Secretary of State’s rooms. The entrance hall being extended towards the rear has, in fact, happened in the St Andrew’s House refurbishment and was part of Teague’s original plan.  It was amended when built.  Yes, that seems to be to me absolutely consistent with what actually happened when St Andrew’s House was refurbished. 

 

881.          Mr Campbell QC:  There was something about Historic Scotland’s flexibility in this letter. 

 

882.          Mr Emerson:  It is just the next paragraph: 

 

883.          “Our conclusion from speaking to Mr Richard Emerson is that they are keen to preserve St Andrew’s House and will be engaged constructively and flexibly in the design debate.” 

 

884.          Mr Campbell QC:  So this is Jones Lang Wootton saying this effectively to the Secretary of State through his officials in the Scottish Office? 

 

885.          Mr Emerson:  Yes. 

 

886.          Mr Campbell QC:  Let us look at the date of that again to remind ourselves:  13 October. 

 

887.          Mr Emerson:  Yes. 

 

888.          Mr Campbell QC:  Now, I showed Mr Andrew a minute this morning which disclosed that you had had a meeting with him on 16 October. 

 

889.          Mr Emerson:  Which I was staggered by. 

 

890.          Mr Campbell QC:  Have you got that there? 

 

891.          Mr Emerson:  It clearly is somebody else, since it is spelt wrong. 

 

892.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, we will leave the misspelling of your surname out of place.  This is not yet scanned, although it does have a number, SE/2/831.  No doubt it can find its way on to the hard disk in due course.  Perhaps since it is not available for public record at the moment, you could just read through the eight bullet points. 

 

893.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.  It starts: 

 

“I met Richard Emerson on 16 October who described Historic Scotland’s views as follows:

 

·         Street frontages to Canongate and Holyrood Road to be maintained; Horse Wynd could be narrowed, and could be open i.e. not built hard to the street line. 

 

·         Tenement 5862 three and a half storeys, sandstone with Somerville shop to be retained.

 

·         Queensberry House to be maintained, and, if possible, enhanced by restoration of dormers on Holyrood Road facade as in plate 12; interior no longer sensitive.

 

·         Queensberry House garden to be kept as open space if not as garden; vista of house is important.

 

·         Courtyard to Canongate to be preserved to Queensberry House.  HS seemed to see this as the front, unlike Scottish & Newcastle. 

 

·         The building along Reid’s Close is listed but could be sacrificed for the greater good.

 

·         Milton House Primary School is not thought to be a school, but some sort of resource centre owned by CEC.  It is Victorian and is not hard against the street, adversely affecting the line.  HS could countenance its demolition and the space incorporated in the scheme.  This would greatly increase the space available for ancillary offices.

 

·         Height of  new building should not exceed existing ones.  There is a statute or regulation governing aspects from the Palace. 

 

894.          Mr Campbell QC:  You said you were astonished by that.  Why? 

 

895.          Mr Emerson:  Because I had no recollection of it.  Although in reading it, curiously, some recollection has come back about the suggestion about the school.  I do recollect making this suggestion about the school.  I was astonished because I did not find it on any of the papers. 

 

896.          Mr Campbell QC:  Well, you can see that it is there. 

 

897.          Lord Fraser:  In the comment that says this is not your patch, which you have told us already is the wrong side of the rail tracks, as far as you are concerned.  Whose patch was it at that time? 

 

898.          Mr Emerson:  Graham Reed’s patch. 

 

899.          Lord Fraser:  Perhaps we should talk to Graham Reed.

 

900.          Mr Emerson: I do not know. 

 

901.          Mr Campbell QC:  It may be difficult for you to remember what your ideas were in October 1997.  Does any of this sound as if it is something you could not possibly have said or are unlikely to have said? 

 

902.          Mr Emerson:  No.  It is obviously not my language, and maybe Anthony Andrew is struggling to report what I was worrying about.  I was worrying about the fact that Canongate is a very narrow street with highish buildings on both sides of it and it runs like a ribbon down to Holyrood.  If there is any demolition there, a rebuilding should preserve that.  So that is the first point. 

 

903.          The second point is that I had been working on the Royal Mile Phase 2 Working Group, which was looking at the streetscape works with the enterprise company and others, including Historic Scotland, for the treatment of the pavements and the traffic calming of the Royal Mile. 

 

904.          One of the concerns of that group was to try and reconnect the Canongate with Abbey Strand.  At the moment, then and probably in the future, you come down the Canongate and you meet a roundabout and then a public lavatory and some undistinguished S&N buildings and a biggish gap across Horse Wynd and Abbeyhill and then a little truncated bit of what was clearly once the Canongate, which is Abbeyhill and then the Palace gates.  The idea was to try in any future developments which did not anticipate a Parliament to narrow Horse Wynd back to something approximating to a Wynd; i.e. narrow, and to make that connection between the Canongate and the Palace more real — get rid of the roundabout.  So that is what that is about. 

 

905.          “The tenement and the sandstone with Somerville shop to be retained”

 

906.          That is just save old buildings; that is my job. 

 

907.          “Queensberry House to be maintained...the  restoration of dormers”

 

908.          This is all to do with the report that Queensberry House had a roofline like Versailles before the military got at it.  I imagine that is what that is about. “Interior no longer sensitive” — I do not think I had any reason to know whether it was sensitive any longer.  I had been told it was not; there was nothing left inside, but I had not actually seen it for myself.  The garden is important; the vista of the house and from the house; I think I would have meant there to the park and from the park into the house. 

 

909.          “The Courtyard to the Canongate”

 

910.          There is a little courtyard framed by the wings of Queensberry House which poke towards the Canongate.  There is a little courtyard there and a wall with a well and things.  I would have said all that was important. 

 

911.          I say self-evidently, I suppose, that this is the front of the house and Anthony Andrew appears to have been led to believe that it is the back of S&N.  But, of course, it has a garden front and a street front. 

 

912.          “The building along Reid’s Close is listed”

 

913.          I cannot quite understand that.  I assume it must be the wing of the hospital that was built for drunken women that you discussed yesterday.  I assume it is that building because the only other buildings in Reid’s Close are the modern council houses at the top, and they were not listed.  So I assume that that is what that means, but I cannot be sure. 

 

914.          “Milton House Primary School”.  This is a barking mad idea by me, I think; I do not think it came from anybody else.  I think I am wrong; I think it is a school; but anyway I did not know at the time.  I just threw it out I think, probably conscious that the site was small.  Maybe I was told that the site was small, but anyway, it was presumably in order to try and increase the size of the site.  Milton House Primary School is a perfectly decent Victorian school; I mean, it is listed and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, it is in red sandstone and it is Scottish baronial and it sits back a few metres from the road with a sort of playground in front of it, full, no doubt, of happy noisy children whose school I do not any longer wish to demolish.  But at the time I thought you could conceivably put a building in that site which would be up to the pavement edge and would repair a break in the Canongate. 

 

915.          The Canongate has these fractures in it; another one on the other side of the road with the bowling green, if you went down the Canongate, every now and then it falls apart.  This seemed to be to me a place where it had fallen apart, and the height is an obvious point.  And the statute or regulation, that is a requirement for development within x metres of the Royal Palace or the Royal Park to be referred to Historic Scotland as guardians of the Queen’s privacy, I assume.  I had no direct involvement in that.  That was obviously a warning about that. 

 

916.          Mr Campbell QC:  So none of these ideas are, if I may use the expression, off the wall as coming from you. 

 

917.          Mr Emerson:  Oh, no, no.  The only one I regard as off the wall is the proposal to remove these poor children’s school in the Canongate.  I am sorry about that. 

 

918.          Mr Campbell QC:  Just a couple of other things, Mr Emerson, please.  Look at HS/1/195, if you will, number 13.  This is Graeme Munro inviting you and Mr Hume to go with the Secretary of State on an early morning visit to St Andrew’s House. 

 

919.          Mr Emerson:  Yes. 

 

920.          Mr Campbell QC:  And, no doubt, before many civil servants get to work so that he can have a prowl around on his own. 

 

921.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.  And also he had a briefing later on that morning, representations from EDI and Forth Ports, which were early — “8.30am, EDI.” 

 

922.          Mr Campbell QC:  And did you go with him on that visit?

 

923.          Mr Emerson:  I did. 

 

924.          Mr Campbell QC:  And did you take his mind or did you get a sense of his mind on the prospects for St Andrew’s House in one form or another? 

 

925.          Mr Emerson:  Well, that was the first time I had ever met him; and I only met him once again.  Therefore, I was in no position to take his mind, if you see what I mean, but he was courteous and interested in the building.  He was not very familiar with the building and at one point, looking out the back, he asked what we were looking at, which slightly surprised me.  I said we were looking at the Old Town of Edinburgh, which was laid out before us Canongate Kirk directly in front, I think.  And he seemed not to quite understand precisely where in Edinburgh all this was.  And I said, “Well, John Lewis is down there.”  And he cheered up and said, “Oh, I see.” 

 

926.          I just recollect that because it was amusing, but the impression I got was that he must have arrived and gone up in the lift and started work and not really been very conscious of the building in which he found himself. 

 

927.          Mr Campbell QC:  How long did that visit last for?

 

928.          Mr Emerson:  An hour, I should think, an hour and a bit.  It was a very leisurelyish walk around.  There was some discussion of security, I think — by somebody, I have no idea who, and I made a flippant comment that a Parliament that the Scottish people wanted to blow up would have been a Parliament that failed. 

 

929.          Mr Campbell QC:  What did you mean by that? 

 

930.          Mr Emerson:  Well, I just thought you should not have to be secure in a Parliament; it should be sufficiently popular not to be at risk from its population.  And I think I got a sort of, “Now, now, now” from him, or something.  So I mean, I obviously went too far there; so I do not think I went there again. 

 

1.30 pm

 

931.          Mr Campbell QC:  Look at HS/1/196 please.  Your document 14.  This is from Mr Andrew, whom we have heard from today, to Mr Hume asking for comment on the S&N document.  Did you take part in the process of scrutinising that?

 

932.          Mr Emerson:  No.  Insofar as there was a division of labour within Historic Scotland at this time, I had been buttoned-on to St Andrew’s House/Calton Hill and John Hume took over responsibility for the Holyrood site, and there was very little discussion.  There was one meeting which I also went to, which Graham Reed also went to, and I think that was an attempt to get a collegiate approach to Queensberry House; but that was the only input I had.

 

933.          Mr Campbell QC:  Did you have any other input into the site selection process for Holyrood?

 

934.          Mr Emerson:  No, not that I am aware of, no.

 

935.          Mr Campbell QC:  When did you cease to be Principal Inspector of Historic Buildings and become the Chief Inspector of Historic Buildings?

 

936.          Mr Emerson:  On 1 March 1999.

 

937.          Mr Campbell QC:  And did you thereafter have some involvement with the Holyrood site?

 

938.          Mr Emerson:  Yes.

 

939.          Mr Campbell QC:  And are you going to tell us about that on another occasion?

 

940.          Mr Emerson:  If invited, yes.

 

941.          Mr Campbell QC:  Thank you so much.  Thank you, Sir, I am much obliged.

 

942.          Lord Fraser:  Thank you very much, Mr Emerson.  We look forward to your return.  It looks like an interesting chapter.

 

943.          Mr Emerson:  I wish I could share that anticipation.

 

944.          Lord Fraser:  Do not lose any sleep about it.  Thank you very much indeed.

 

945.          Mr Campbell QC:  Sir, as I have outlined, the Inquiry team has received literally thousands of documents.  So that I am not stumbling ahead of documents handed to me on the day or even the day before, it is necessary for me to take time to consider which of those are relevant for the Inquiry’s purposes, and furthermore to organise the attendance of witnesses so that your time is used to best advantage.  Inevitably because the considerations of economy have provided you with a small team, this will take some time.  Could I invite you to adjourn accordingly until a week on Monday, 24 November, at which time we will enter on a different chapter of evidence concerning, principally, the role of Dr Gibbons initially and thereafter, I hope, the participants in the designer selection team.

 

946.          Lord Fraser:  Thank you very much Mr Campbell.  Can I just echo your words that while we have received a very, very significant quantity of documents, if there are those who still think that they have relevant documentation, to send it to us.  Although it takes time to process them we would still welcome them, and I repeat your gratitude to all those who have actually already provided us with documentation.  We value that and will do our best to reduce them into a relevant core that will be displayed on the web site in due course.

 

947.          Thank you very much.  We will now adjourn for just over a week.

 

Hearing adjourned at 1.33 pm.