(APG0040)

Written evidence submitted by Damian Green MP

 

 

I would like to respond to the evidence given to you by Mr Gerlis, and to the comments made by the Committee at the time.

 

The full transcript of Mr Gerlis’ evidence shows that his perfectly genuine concerns were about transparency and the behaviour of Secretariats, particularly of non-active APPGs. In both these areas the APPG on Longevity has behaved perfectly properly.

 

It was unfortunate and surprising that the only evidence Mr Gerlis produced related to a very early iteration of a sponsorship proposal circulated 2 months after the APPG formed in March 2019, which he appeared to believe was up-to date at the time. While he corrected this misunderstanding after the evidence session (as footnoted eventually in the transcript), this lack of basic fact-checking led to subsequent assumptions being made in the ensuing line of questioning at the hearing: The Chair saying this looked like “the baddest of the bad” has had the inevitable effect on the reputation of the APPG, which is wholly unfair.

 

The assumption throughout Mr Gerlis’ evidence session was that  meetings” always refer to meetings with Ministers or MPs. In fact the meetings mentioned in the document were of working groups of professionals and experts in the field with a view to producing reports. So, the insinuation that anyone was paying for access is wholly wrong.

 

In summary, and as our evidence very clearly demonstrates, the accusation had no foundation for the following reasons:

 

I am sure that Mr Gerlis was speaking in good faith, but the effect of his statement has been an undeserved attack on an APPG which is as transparent as any other and which has never served the commercial ends of any sponsor, and never provided ‘cash for access to MPs or Ministers’ as insinuated in the BBC website article which arose from the Committee hearing. I hope that in the margins of the Committee’s eventual report on APPGs this can be acknowledged. 

 

I would of course be happy to discuss this further.

 

 

11 January 2022