27 June 2022: Major - D

 So, to questions for John Major from core participants …

On the HIV Litigation settlement and the effects on Territorial budgets; he said he thinks there was not an effect.

On the obligations on Ministers to be candid, but what about civil servants; he said “Yes” it applies.

On being consulted prior to announcing this Inquiry; he said he had not been consulted.

On ex gratia payments; he said it had now been established and would likely go on as one way to respond.

On the difference between financial support and compensation; he said compensation is not the right word, ex gratia is better. You cannot compensate people for the way their lives were wrecked. It is hard to find a word that might not be offensive to someone.

On avoiding setting a precedent, is there a way forward by investigating and learning; he said that it would add more time doing that, and many are no longer here, so, “we need to act quickly” (Indeed!)

On the election at the time of considering financial support; he said it didn’t affect the election and did not feature as an election issue

On the contingency amount, what is the percentage; he said it is a guestimate of what might be needed and he couldn’t say

On Ministerial “private papers”, what should happen to them; he said they should have no papers of their own because they belong to the Government, including the papers held in an office, and these too should be preserved, not assumed to be ripe for destruction.

On belatedly discovering errors in papers; he said he would expect mistakes to be corrected, including in Parliament if required. Nowadays papers are more available. People might have written notes that were quite rude and never thought anyone would see them.

On there being a “line to take” and the risk of inertia; he said that was a risk, and there are some issues which seem ingrained (“in the blood”?)

On lines and briefings potentially needing to be changed; he said it would be expected that a senior civil servant would go to the Minister and explain frankly, after having sought views and putting a paper together. But it takes a senior and experienced civil servant to do that.

On times when things happen that shouldn’t have and what should happen remedially; he said it may need to start with going back for more information.

The Chair asked about settlement on a “legitimate” claim for help as described earlier by the witness, and if that was that the word back then. He said it might have been, although he might not have used that word. Sir Brian also asked about the views of John Moore on issues of precedent and special circumstances. He said the no-fault compensation concept was the new response. The Chair asked about other “special circumstances” such as Aberfan or vaccine damage. He said tat for infected blood it was the case of nothing else could have been done because it was done for the best of motives and on the best available information at the time. That was the basis for no-fault ex gratia payments. Sir Brian asked about a memo from Paul Gray mentioning avoiding both a legal and moral obligation. So, what was the obligation? He said he felt there was a moral obligation, but unless you are completely “compassion free”, you would need to see that something had to be done, but they had to do it in a way to avoid the mis-use of precedent. Ex gratia was the response to the space left by no obvious obligation. The Chair asked about  Government acting to meet a need. He said that Government has an obligation to spend public money for a justified reason, but sometimes they need to do something. He cited unemployment benefits as not a legal obligation but a reasonable and fair response to need.

Mr Major did not have anything to add.

The Chair expressed his gratitude to the “measured evidence”. Respect is due for the reflection of maybe getting the Hepatitis issue wrong.

Mr Major then did have something to add. He wanted to explain again about his use of “bad luck”. He apologised because he meant it was a random matter, whereas bad luck indicated a cause. Sir John guessed he had answered 500 questions during the sessions, and he got one wrong, therefore, he expected to read about that one answer tomorrow.

What did we learn? Not much. The grey man was rather beige A major disappointment.