I know, or at least I think I know, that Ian Coghill recounted a tale of what Michael Gove had said to him, Nick Downshire (chair of the Moorland Association) and Amanda Anderson, to a room which consisted largely of grouse moor managers. I know this because the intelligence rapidly trickled back from that meeting that Mr Gove had been very supportive of the industry. In fact he is said to have said.. well, we might come to that eventually.
But Defra, responding to FoI requests say that Mr Gove has not had meetings (what is the definition of a meeting in this respect I wonder?) with Mr Coghill, The Marquess of Downshire or Amanda Anderson and it would be quite naughty of them to lie about this.
So who is right?
Did Ian Coghill imagine the remarks of the Secretary of State? That seems hard to believe. Or did Defra forget that the Secretary of State had met these eminent upland stakeholders and given them some advice? That seems hard to believe too, and I did ask them to check and they have reiterated their position that no meeting took place.
So that’s why I am puzzled.
Can anyone help me out please?
[registration_form]
If Gove is really so stupid as to imagine that there are any votes to be had in supporting killing birds of prey then he isn’t quite such a power – crazed egomaniac after all.
When are the politicians going to grasp where the votes are?
You and me have nothing to offer a man like Gove other than a single vote once every few years. The people who really count are party donors and the people in who will sponsor your extra-parliamentary jobs as a Director, company Chair, “consultant”, “advisor” to those seeking to influence big government contracts and policies and so on.
So we get the soundbites; the actual policies are the property of the men offering all those other, juicier, incentives
Was Michael Gove meeting them in his capacity as a Government minister, as a constituency MP, or in a private capacity? The latter two options, presumably, would not require Defra to respond in the affirmative. Is the Conservative party (HQ or Surrey Heath constituency party) covered by FOI laws?
Hi Mark. Defra has form here. Slightly different tactics but same effect.
On 30 April Defra finished a six week consultation questionnaire (targeted specifically at gamekeepers, farmers and other users of traps) on their response to the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards. The AIHTS is an international agreement to ban less humane traps for use with certain fur bearing animals. In the UK, the animal of particular interest is the stoat currently trapped on a huge scale on shooting estates (or small, family run businesses as Defra prefers to call them at EU meetings!)
Anyway, in the run up to the implementation date of July 2016 Defra held a very important meeting with 13 shooting, gamekeeper, and trap user, supplier and manufacturer representative groups. Senior Defra officials from Wales, England and Scotland all attended or telephone linked to the meeting together with representatives from government agencies SASA and APHA and, at the meeting it was agreed that (although the agreement had been under negotiation for 18 years) the government needed more time to find suitable traps for use in the UK! So it was agreed that the implementation of the AIHTS should be delayed and the government would seek a derogation – the only country in the EU to do so!
Unfortunately, can you believe it, Mark, not one of the (4?) government officials took any notes at all and the presentation by APHA on the experiments they were carrying out on animals was completely verbal so no notes. In fact everything was vocal and, because the GWCT had organised and chaired the meeting, Defra officials had no copies of the minutes and had never been supplied minutes, even draft minutes, by the GWCT, even though minutes of the meeting were written up! How silly of the GWCT not to distribute those minutes or government officials to ask for a copy!
It’s such a shame because you’d think Defra officials would think that agreeing to defer implementation of an international treaty during a meeting with lobby groups would be worth taking some sort of hand written notes or a record of some sort, to cover their backs if nothing else, but no, none of the government representatives thought about that!
And, unfortunately, the research report analysing the experiment results outlined at the meeting by APHA officials was only handed to the government one or two days before the agreement deadline. And, equally unfortunate, if has not been peer reviewed so can’t be released to the public … not in the months or even years after they were used to justify the delay. I asked again in April for a copy ….
It’s such a shame because you would think Defra would want to be transparent about its approach to an important animal welfare issue that has now taken 20 years to be implemented … And still waiting.
It’s certainly possible that the meeting was private and not subject to FoI. However I don’t think the SoS could have a private meeting in a government building, nor do I think his Private Office could help organise such a meeting. I suppose the same applies to his constituency office. The way to find out about the bits you don’t already know would presumably be to ask about correspondence with the individuals involved.