The apologies came after the organisation was accused of alleged misconduct affecting a witness who appeared before the sub-committee when it was taking evidence recently into its report on Delivering sustainable waste management . And in a letter to Andrew Bennett who chairs the committee, ENTRUST said it apologised for “a contempt of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons and its committees”.
Today the sub-committee accepted these apologies which were made “fully and unreservedly”.
The apologies come after Dr Sills wrote to Dr Malcolm Aickin in February about Dr Aickin's involvement with ENTRUST. Dr Sills also made comments in the letter about Dr Aickin's evidence to the sub-committee. And, in the letter Dr Sills, acting under instruction from the ENTRUST board, withdrew the offer of a place on ENTRUST's improvement panel as well as making several other strongly worded comments.
Now, Lord Cranbrook has said: “ENTRUST recognises that the letter dated 27 February 2001 from Dr Sills to Dr Aickin should not have been written in the terms that it was. It accepts that the letter constitutes a contempt of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons and its committees, although at the time that the letter was written, it was not appreciated that this was the case. ENTRUST unreservedly apologises for that contempt.”
Dr Aickin and ENTRUST have now patched up their differences and agreed a joint statement: “We are pleased to state that Dr Aickin and the ENTRUST chairman and chief executive are in discussions to explore how Dr Aickin's contribution can be utilised to enhance the credit scheme.
“We are all agreed that Dr Aickins' contribution is not best made through the improvement panel. We are also committed to exploring how Dr Aickin's expertise and knowledge can best contribute to ENTRUST's desire to improve its performance in regulating the innovative and successful scheme so that it can provide more effective support for sustainable waste management, environmental projects and community schemes.”
Fallacy
The joint statement comes after some disagreement between Dr Aickin and ENTRUST over the extent to which the directors and chairman of the organisation are connected with the waste industry.
Dr Sills has written to the sub-committee saying that it is a fallacy to say that the ENTRUST board is dominated by members with experience of the waste industry. He writes about various members including Lord Cranbrook, about whom he states: “Certainly Lord Cranbrook is the chairman of Shanks Waste Solutions' Environmental Advisory Board, but he is not employed by Shanks. He was a also a non-executive director of Anglian Water plc which has a landfill operator subsidiary. Neither makes Lord Cranbrook a “representative” of the waste industry … He has also been a distinguished Parliamentarian (amongst other things, chairman of the Lords' environment select committee), a local councillor, director or trustee of numerous voluntary sector organisations, chairman of English Nature, an academic etc., etc.”
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