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Witness name: Gareth Davies
Statement No.: WITN11020300
Dated: 23 May 2024
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
THIRD WITNESS STATEMENT OF GARETH DAVIES
INTRODUCTION
1. I, Gareth Davies, Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and
Trade, Old Admiralty Building, Admiralty Place, London SW1A 2DY, will state as
follows.
2. I make this statement in response to the Inquiry’s request for evidence dated 7
May 2024 (“the Rule 9 request’), in which the Department for Business and
Trade (“DBT’ or “the department’) is asked to provide a written corporate
statement that identifies:
(1) All private secretaries in post from 2000 onwards who acted for ministers
whilst they were in the following roles:
(a) Minister of State for Competitiveness;
(b) Minister of State for e-Commerce and Competitiveness;
(c) Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Trade and Industry) (Employment
Relations and Consumer Affairs);
(d) Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Trade and Industry) (Delivery and
Efficiency);
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(e) Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations and Postal
Services);
(f) Minister of State for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs;
(g) Minister for Postal Affairs and Employment Relations;
(h) Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations,
Consumer and Postal Affairs;
(i) I Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills and Minister for Intellectual Property;
(j) I Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Small Business,
Consumers and Corporate Responsibility;
(k) Any other ministerial role not listed in paragraphs (a) - (j) above, which
had responsibility for Post Office Limited (and its relevant
predecessors).
All private secretaries who acted for Secretaries of State in the following
roles from 2000 onwards:
(a) Secretary of State for Trade and Industry;
(b) Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform;
(c) Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills;
(d) Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy;
(e) Secretary of State for Business and Trade;
(f) Any other ministerial role not listed in paragraphs (a) - (e) above,
which had responsibility for Post Office Limited (and its relevant
predecessors).
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(3) All Permanent Secretaries and Principal Accounting Officers within the
departments headed by the Secretaries of State identified above from
2000.
3. In respect of all of these officials, the Inquiry has requested that I identify the
period of time when they were in post. In respect of private secretaries, I am
asked to identify the ministers or Secretaries of State in whose private offices
they worked. I understand that the request relates only to those private
secretaries who were involved in postal affairs or matters related to the Post
Office.
4. I make this statement on behalf of DBT. I have been assisted in its preparation
by officials within my department, as well as the Government Legal Department
and counsel. The majority of the information set out in this statement is not known
to me personally, and I have therefore drawn and relied upon extensive input
from colleagues. It is in that sense a ‘corporate statement’. Its contents are true
to the best of my knowledge and belief.
5. I am authorised by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to make this
statement.
PRIVATE SECRETARIES
6. Aminister’s private secretary (often referred to as a PS) is a civil servant who
works in a minister's private office. The essential objective of a private secretary
is to assist the minister in managing their demanding workload on a day-to-day
basis, so the minister can focus on decision-making. They do not hold any policy
or decision-making responsibilities themselves, but instead act as a principal
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liaison between a department's policy officials and its ministers. Private
secretaries are responsible for providing administrative support to the minister to
facilitate them in their ministerial role (that is, not in their position as a Member
of Parliament).
Key parts of the private secretary's role include: managing the minister's diary
(in conjunction with a specific diary manager), liaising with relevant policy teams,
deciding the papers that should be put before a minister on a given day
(principally through the ministerial box) and ensuring deadlines are met,
preparing and managing meetings, note taking and record keeping, and logistics.
Within a particular private office, there is usually a ‘Senior Private Secretary’ or
‘SPS’ who acts as head of the minister's private office, and then more junior
private secretaries who hold responsibility within the private office for a particular
brief (or briefs) held by the minister. The particular brief which is managed by a
particular private secretary will depend on the number of private secretaries
within the office, as well as the nature of the minister's role and their overall
portfolio. A minister may have multiple private secretaries working with them at
a given point in time, and a number of these private secretaries will have had no
involvement in the Post Office brief.
Due to the nature of their roles as political appointees, ministers can lose or have
their position in Government changed when the governing party changes or
when a ministerial reshuffle takes place. However, as civil servants, private
secretaries generally remain in their role when their minister moves on, and often
continue to work with replacement ministers, even if they represent a different
political party to the one that came previously.
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10. In light of this, it is extremely likely that a given minister and their private
secretaries will have commenced and ended their roles at different times,
including in circumstances where:
(a) asingle private secretary will have been in post for a period covering the
term of several ministers; and
(b) various private secretaries will have commenced and ended employment
throughout the term of a single minister.
11. DBT does not hold a list of private secretaries over the period of time requested
by the Inquiry. Therefore, DBT officials have sought to identify the relevant
private secretaries by:
(i) reviewing civil service yearbooks, which were published annually until
2017, and which provide a snapshot of the private secretaries in post at
the point when information was collated for publication;
(ii) conducting searches within emails and documents held by DBT for the
purposes of this Inquiry; and
(iii) I asking relevant DBT officials to identify relevant PSs.
12. I set out in Appendices 1 and 2 the details of relevant private secretaries as
identified by DBT officials in response to the Rule 9 request.
13. There is a possibility that not all relevant private secretaries over the period
covered by the Rule 9 request have been identified, for reasons including:
(i) that the civil service yearbooks provide a snapshot only and in some
cases only mention the Senior Private Secretary; and
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(ii) that relevant private secretaries may not be identified in the emails and
other documents which the department has on file as a result of
departmental document retention policies.
14. Individuals in post temporarily to cover periods of temporary absence are not
identified in the appendices.
15. I understand that departmental officials are reasonably confident that they have
identified the vast majority of the relevant private secretaries identifiable from
departmental records.
PERMANENT SECRETARIES AND PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTING OFFICERS
16. A Permanent Secretary is the most senior civil servant in a government
department. They are responsible and accountable for day-to-day management
of all the work of their department, as well as the departmental budget.
Permanent Secretaries are normally also Principal Accounting Officers (“AOs”)
for their departments, which entails their being responsible and accountable to
Parliament for the use of public money; as relevant to the Rule 9 request, all
departmental Permanent Secretaries were also AOs. The duties and
expectations of AOs are determined and monitored by HM Treasury through the
‘Managing Public Money’ guidance published by the Government.
17. Like private secretaries, Permanent Secretaries are civil servants. Therefore,
Permanent Secretaries are likely to be in post throughout the period of more than
one minister or Secretary of State, and their time in office does not generally
correspond with the time that a minister holds their post.
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18. I set out in Appendix 3 the relevant departmental Permanent Secretaries (not
including any ‘acting’ Permanent Secretaries covering temporary absences of
established Permanent Secretaries). Officials have compiled this information
from departmental records and other publicly available government information.
Due to multiple machinery of government changes, the relevant department with
responsibility for Post Office Limited (and its predecessors) has changed
throughout the years. Therefore, the relevant Permanent Secretary, for the
department with responsibility for the Post Office, has also changed
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Dated: 23 May 2024
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APPENDIX 1
Ministerial title Minister Ministerial Relevant Private Secretary
dates name/s
Minister of State for Rt Hon. Alan 28 July 1999 I Simon Lancaster (memo
Competitiveness Johnson dated 04/08/99 and 34th
11 June 2001
civil service yearbook)
Minister of State for
Rt Hon. Douglas
11 June 2001
Alison Walker (37° civil
e-Commerce and Alexander - service yearbook)
Competitiveness 29 May 2002
Minister for Energy, Rt Hon. Sir 29 May 2002 I Alison Walker (38" civil
E-Commerce and Stephen Timms I-9 service yearbook)
Postal Services September
2004 Mike Warnes (39th civil
service yearbook)
Colin Cushway, Nicola
Barber (corporate memory)
Parliamentary Under- I Gerry 9 September I Dominic Scullard
Secretary (Trade and I Sutcliffe 2004 — 10 (email dated 19/01/05)
Industry) May 2005
(Employment Sam Myers (42nd civil
Relations and service yearbook)
Consumer Affairs)
Parliamentary Under- I Barry Gardiner I 10 May 2005 I Matthew Clarke (email
Secretary (Trade and —5 May 2006 I dated 13/02/06)
Industry) (Delivery
and Efficiency)
Parliamentary Under- I Jim Fitzpatrick 5 May 2006 — I Dominic Scullard (email
Secretary 28 June 2007 I dated 23/08/06)
(Employment
Relations and Postal Mark Forde (email dated
Services) 31/01/07)
Minister of State for Rt Hon. Pat 02 July 2007 I Robert Porteous (email
Employment McFadden - dated 25/02/09 and 2009
Relations and Postal 5 June 2009 I civil service yearbook)
Affairs
Kate Hall (email dated
04/06/09)
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Ministerial title Minister Ministerial Relevant Private Secretary
dates name/s
Minister for Postal Rt Hon. Lord 9 June 2009 - I Robert Cotes (email dated
Affairs and Young of 6 May 2010 20/07/09)
Employment Norwood
Relations Green
Parliamentary Under- I Rt Hon. Sir 6 May 2010 — I Sarah Barraclough (email
Secretary of State for I Edward Davey I 3 February dated 25/05/10)
Employment 2012
Relations and Postal Amy Jordan (email dated
Affairs 21/06/10)
Jez Williams (email dated
05/07/10)
Stephen Parkinson (email
dated 21/11/11)
Parliamentary Under- I Rt Hon. Norman I 3 February Sarah Barraclough (email
Secretary of State for I Lamb 2012-6 dated 27/02/12)
Employment September
Relations and Postal 2012 Stephen Parkinson (email
Affairs
dated 15/03/12)
Marzena Bujalska (email
dated 26/04/12)
Maria Isanzu (email dated
19/06/12)
Parliamentary Under-
Secretary of State for
Employment
Relations and Postal
Affairs
Jo Swinson
6 September
2012 - 20
December
2013;
30 June 2014
Claire Rannard (as Private
Secretary - email dated
31/10/13 and corporate
memory)
Claire Rannard (as Senior
Private Secretary email
8 May 2015 I dated 13/09/14)
Alysa Remtulla (email dated
24/10/14)
Emily Cloke (49" civil
service yearbook)
Parliamentary Under- I Rt Hon. Jenny 20 Claire Rannard (email dated
Secretary of State for I Willott December 19/05/14)
Employment 2013 - 30
Relations, Consumer June 2014
and Postal Affairs
(Maternity
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Ministerial title Minister Ministerial Relevant Private Secretary
dates name/s
Cover for Jo
Swinson)
Parliamentary Under- I Rt Hon. 17 July 2014 I Andrew Smith (email dated
Secretary of State for I Baroness -17 July 16/07/15)
Business, Innovation I Neville-Rolfe 2016
and Skills and DBE CMG Sophie Munday (email
Minister for dated 11/05/16)
Intellectual Property
Harriet Smith, Senior Private
Secretary (email dated 4
August 2015)
Parliamentary Under- I Margot James 16 July 2016 I Sophia Nikolaou (email
Secretary of State for - dated 26/07/17)
Small Business, 9 January
Consumers and 2018 Auryn Stevenson Hyde
Corporate (email dated 04/12/17 and
Responsibility 53" civil service yearbook)
Parliamentary Under- I Andrew Griffiths I 9 January — Auryn Stevenson Hyde
Secretary of State for 14 July 2018 I (email dated 29/03/18)
Small Business,
Consumers and
Corporate
Responsibility
Parliamentary Under- I Rt Hon. Kelly 19 July Jessica Tysoe (email dated
Secretary of State for I Tolhurst 2018-13 04/06/19)
Small Business, February
Consumers and 2020
Corporate
Responsibility
Parliamentary Under- I Paul Scully 13 February I Jessica Tysoe (email dated
Secretary of State for
Small Business,
Consumers and
Labour Markets
2020 - 8 July
2022
14/04/21)
Sonny Murphy (email dated
13/11/20)
Cora Sweet (corporate
memory 07/21-08/23)
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Ministerial title Minister Ministerial Relevant Private Secretary
dates name/s
Francesca Clough, Senior
Private Secretary (corporate
memory 03/21-09/21)
Guy Brindle, Senior Private
Secretary (corporate
memory, from 09/21)
Parliamentary Under- I Jane Hunt 8 July 2022 - I Cora Sweet
Secretary of State for 8 September I (corporate memory 07/21-
Small Business, 2022 08/23)
Consumers and
Labour Markets Guy Brindle, Senior Private
Secretary (corporate
memory, from 09/21)
Parliamentary Under- I Dean Russell 20 Cora Sweet
Secretary of State for September (corporate memory 07/21-
Enterprise and 2022 - 27 08/23)
Markets October 2022
Guy Brindle, Senior Private
Secretary (corporate
memory, from 09/21)
Parliamentary Under- I Kevin Hollinrake I 27 October Cora Sweet
Secretary of State for 2022 - (corporate memory 07/21-
Enterprise and present 08/23)
Markets (in BEIS until
7 February 2023);
Parliamentary Under
Secretary of State &
Minister for
Enterprise, Markets
and Small Business
(in DBT from 7
February 2023 to 26
March 2024); and
Minister of State for
Enterprise, Markets
and Small Business
since 26 March 2024.
Jamie Lucas (current)
Guy Brindle, Senior Private
Secretary (current)
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Appendix 2
Secretary of State Name SoS dates Relevant Private
Secretary name/s
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. 27 July 1998 — 23 I Christopher Woolard
Trade and Industry Stephen Byers I December 1998 I (memo 23/09/99)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Patricia I 8 June 2001-5 I Sarah Hodgetts (email
Trade and Industry Hewitt May 2005 dated 05/03/03)
Damian Nussbaum
(corporate memory)
Angela Piearce
(corporate memory)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Alan 6 May 2005 - 5 Spencer Mahony (email
Trade and Industry Johnson May 2006 dated 13/05/05)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Lord 5 May 2006 - 28 I Megan Bingham-Walker
Trade and Industry Darling of June 2007 (email dated 07/02/07)
Roulanish
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Lord 28 June 2007 — 3 I Megan Bingham-Walker
Business, Enterprise I Hutton of October 2008 (email dated 26/07/07)
and Regulatory Furness
Reform
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Lord 3 October 2008 — I Paul McCaffrey (email
Business, Innovation I Mandelson 11 May 2010 dated 04/02/09)
and Skills
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Sir 12 May 2010 — Joanne Crellin, Principal
Business, Innovation I Vince Cable 12 May 2015 Private Secretary (49"
and Skills civil service yearbook)
Hannah Wiskin,
Principal Private
Secretary (51° civil
service yearbook)
Emily Hamblin, Senior
Private Secretary (51°
civil service yearbook)
Elizabeth Elton (email
dated 23/07/10)
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Secretary of State Name SoS dates Relevant Private
Secretary name/s
Laura Thompson
(emails dated 05/09/11
and 20/02/12)
Saskia Bradbury (email
dated 29/07/13)
Michael Skwarek (email
dated 20/12/13)
Tara Fernando (email
dated 12/03/15)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Sir 12 May 2015 — George Thomson (email
Business, Innovation I Sajid Javid 13 July 2016 dated 15/07/15)
and Skills
Emma Squire, Principal
Private Secretary (52™
civil service yearbook)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Greg 14 July 2016 — 24 I Rebecca Lowe (email
Business, Energy and I Clark July 2019 dated 20 July 2018)
Industrial Strategy
Alex Williams, Principal
Private Secretary (537
civil service yearbook)
Christopher Perfect,
Senior Private Secretary
(53° civil service
yearbook)
Jacqui Ward, Principal
Private Secretary (54"
civil service yearbook)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Andrea I 24 July 2019 —- 13 I Rebecca Lowe (email
Business, Energy and I Leadsom February 2020 dated 20 Nov 2019)
Industrial Strategy
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Sir Alok I 13 February 2020 I Rebecca Lowe (email
Business, Energy and I Sharma —8 January 2021 I dated 03 March 2020)
Industrial Strategy
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Secretary of State Name SoS dates Relevant Private
Secretary name/s
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Kwasi 8 January 2021 — I Jack Crowther
Business, Energy and I Kwarteng 6 September (corporate memory)
Industrial Strategy 2022
Megan Wilson (email
dated 11/02/21)
Dr Isabel Webb, Eleanor
Potter, and Theo
Walsingham, Senior
Private Secretaries
(corporate memory)
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Sir 6 September Catherine Angus
Business, Energy and I Jacob Rees- 2022 - 25 (corporate memory)
Industrial Strategy Mogg October 2022
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Grant 25 October 2022 I Catherine Angus
Business, Energy and I Shapps - 7 February (corporate memory)
Industrial Strategy 2023
Secretary of State for I Rt Hon. Kemi 7 February 2023 - I Ellie de la Bedoyere,
Business and Trade I Badenoch Present previous Principal
Private Secretary
(corporate memory)
Rose Lasko-Skinner,
previous Private
Secretary (corporate
memory)
Annie Leigh, Principal
Private Secretary
(current)
Jason Cheung
(current)
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Appendix 3
Permanent Secretary Dates
Sir Michael Scholar 1996 — 2001
Sir Robin Young June 2001 — March 2005
Sir Brian Bender March 2005 — May 2009
Sir Simon Fraser May 2009 — August 2010
Sir Martin Donnelly 11 October 2010 - 4
September 2016
Sir Alex Chisholm 5 September 2016 — 13 April
2020
Sam Beckett (acting) 14 April 2020 — 19 July 2020
Sarah Munby 20 July 2020 - 6 February
2023
Gareth Davies 7 February 2023 — present
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