18

The termination of the employment contract of Dr Jones

Extracts from government memoranda and emails

Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street

From:

Peter Maxwell

To:

Herbert Berkshire, Foreign & Commonwealth Office

Subject:

Yemen salmon project

Date:

14 October

Herbert,

The PM was asked about the Yemen salmon project in the House yesterday. It is not an issue he wants to take up any parliamentary time. Our concern is that the involvement of a government agency (NCFE) may be wrongly construed as suggesting that this project has official government backing.

You will, I am sure, understand that our posture has always been supportive with respect to the Yemen salmon project. If it works, then I am sure the PM will be happy to endorse it, and perhaps make a personal visit as a private guest of the sheikh to see the salmon running. Meanwhile we need more deniability.

I suggest that the scientist Jones, who is doing all the work at NCFE, is disemployed from the agency with immediate effect. If you think this can be done by a word in the right ear, he could perhaps be re-employed by Fitzharris, the consultants who are project managers for the sheikh. That is a matter for them. The important thing is that no civil servant or government official should be directly connected with this project. NCFE should, in my view, be discouraged from being so close to the project. Whilst NCFE is part of DEFRA, this essentially is a matter of foreign policy and that is why I am airing the matter with you.

This memo is only a suggestion, of course. I leave it to you in your wisdom to decide the right course events should take.

Peter

Memo

From:

Herbert Berkshire

To:

Peter Maxwell

Subject:

Salmon⁄Yemen

Date:

14 October

Peter,

Thank you for your suggestion of today’s date. I think it is wise that the Yemen salmon project should be perceived as a wholly private-sector project, and I will make appropriate noises in appropriate ears in due course.

Herbert

Email

From:

Herbert.Berkshire@fcome.gov.uk

Date:

14 October

To:

David.Sugden@ncfe.gov.uk

Subject:

Yemen salmon project

David,

There is a degree of concern in (senior) government circles with respect to current NCFE management issues. There is a view developing at ministerial level that NCFE may have embraced the Yemen salmon project a little too enthusiastically. I think you need to be aware that Foreign Office policy is to maintain a neutral stance with respect to the Yemen, which is in a politically sensitive region of the world. Policy is not to, or be perceived to, do anything that might be interpreted as religious, political or cultural interference with that country by the UK government. I recall speaking to you about NCFE giving some limited technical support to the Yemen salmon project as a goodwill gesture, but I cannot imagine that your own department or mine ever envisaged at that time the level of involvement NCFE now has. However, I think you should know my own department has advised, and will continue to advise, government that it is important there are no grounds for a perception being formed by the media and others that the project in any way has official backing. Some ministers, I know, feel a concern that NCFE is now overdependent on the income stream from the Yemen salmon project, and might be said by uninformed observers to be somewhat in the pocket of a private Yemeni individual.

Whilst no one (as far as I know) wants the project to be stopped, it might be a creative and responsible course of action if you were to put a little more distance between your agency and the project and its sponsor.

Herbert

Email

From:

David.Sugden@ncfe.gov.uk

Date:

14 October

To:

Fred.joncs@ncfe.gov.uk

Subject:

(no subject)

Fred, please come to my office asap.

Email

From:

Fred.jones@fitzharris.com

Date:

14 October

To:

Mary.jones@interfinance.org

Subject:

New job

Dear Mary,

I have lost my job.

There were, apparently, some awkward questions in the House of Commons about the Yemen salmon project last week. As a result of that someone called Herbert Berkshire from the Foreign Office rang my boss to say it might be better if I ceased to be on the Civil Service payroll. Apparently Peter Maxwell wants ‘clear blue water’ between the government and the Yemen salmon project.

So, the bad news is, I have had my employment contract with NCFE terminated. David called me into the office and explained that it was ‘no longer appropriate in all of the circumstances’ for me to continue. ‘There was concern in the department at imbalances in workload and priorities caused by the growing demands of the project.’ I have received an appallingly small redundancy cheque and a month’s pay in lieu of notice. David Sugden handed me both yesterday, and explained I had the right to go to an employment tribunal if I did not like the circumstances in which my contract had been terminated.

Needless to say, there was a bit more to it than this. At almost the same time the lady who manages most of the sheikh’s affairs in the UK (a Ms Chetwode-Talbot, I can’t remember if I have mentioned her name before) sent me an offer of employment. The contract will run for an initial three years and my salary will be—wait for it—£120,000 a year!!! On top of that I will receive a car allowance, plus pension, plus health insurance, plus special hardship allowances for travelling and time spent working in the Yemen. The bottom line is, the project will continue, but now I will be working for Fitzharris & Price, the firm that manages the sheikh’s UK affairs, and the government will be able to say there is no official UK involvement in this project.

I don’t know what to think about it all. On the one hand I am sad to leave the NCFE, where I have spent most of my working life, and I feel sure that once I am out I will never get back in, at least not in the same position. On the other hand, now I am working for the sheikh I am no longer bound by all our departmental procedures—I can just get on with the project, and to be honest that is what I most want to do.

So, Mary, I am now a very well paid and independent fisheries scientist. Well paid enough that you could afford to give up your job in Geneva and come back home to me. I know it isn’t just the money, but maybe you could think about it?

I miss you.

Come back home.

With much love

Your Fred