Was defence secretary Liam Fox in the wrong?

Defence secretary Liam Fox has faced criticism over the nature of his relationship with friend Adam Werritty after it was revealed that he had been put on the public payroll and arranged meetings for Dr Fox – despite not being a government or Conservative party employee.

Werritty, 34, described himself as an ‘adviser to the Rt Hon Dr Fox MP’ on self-printed business cards and travelled on up to 18 foreign trips with the defence secretary, excursions that are being scrutinised for breaches in the Ministerial Code. His involvement with Dr Fox’s foreign trips emerged after he was spotted in footage taken during a meeting with the Sri Lankan president last year.

But has the defence secretary broken parliamentary rules?

Relationship

Adam Werritty is a close friend of Dr Fox’s, having been best man at his wedding in 2005. He was director of recently dissolved Atlantic Bridge, a charity founded by Dr Fox to “strengthen the special relationship” between the UK and US.  Werritty’s term as an intern for Dr Fox also had new light shed on it during Monday’s House of Commons questioning, as it was revealed that he was paid £5,800 for “research work”.

Most damning, however, is the revelation that Werritty joined Dr Fox on more than a dozen foreign trips and visited the Ministry of Defence on 22 occasions – despite not having the required national security clearance. Werritty was present as the defence secretary travelled in Singapore, Bahrain, Dubai, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Qatar and Sri Lanka.

According the Ministerial Code, cabinet ministers are allowed to appoint up to “two paid or unpaid special advisers”. In addition “all appointments…require the written approval of the Prime Minister, and no commitments to make such appointments should be entered into in the absence of such approval”. On this count, Dr Fox fell short of officially declaring Werritty as an adviser, though his friend had business cards printed to suggest otherwise.

For this Dr Fox issued a statement on Sunday, in which he said: “I accept that mistakes were made and I should have not allowed the impression of wrongdoing to arise, I’m very sorry for that.” He also apologised for allowing “distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend”.

Special advisers

The code of conduct for special advisers explains that “they are an additional resource for the Minister providing assistance from a standpoint that is more politically committed and politically aware than would be available to a Minister from the permanent Civil Service”. Though fronted as an adviser to Dr Fox, it has been debated how Werritty’s presence abroad and at the Ministry of Defence provided an “additional resource” to the defence secretary.

Despite giving a prompt and frank apology, Fox remains somewhat defiant over his relationship with Werritty. He insisted that he had done nothing wrong, categorically denying that he had abused his ministerial power. He also kept the backing of David Cameron, despite a No 10 spokesman admitting that Fox had made “serious mistakes”.

Adam Werritty is now set to face questioning from an inquiry looking into the relationship, centring on the income he received during his term as neither an employee nor a declared special adviser to the defence secretary. The outcome of this inquiry could be a determining factor as to whether Dr Fox keeps his job, a position filled with heightened insecurity as every new detail emerges.