Byers admits: I hid the truth

Embattled Transport Secretary Stephen Byers today confessed that he had failed to tell the whole truth about the sacking of his press chief, Martin Sixsmith.

In an astonishing and humiliating turnaround in the Commons, Mr Byers admitted that he had demanded Mr Sixsmith should be barred from finding a job anywhere in Whitehall. That directly contradicted his TV assertion at the weekend that he had left the matter of Mr Sixsmith's future entirely to the department's top official, Permanent Secretary Sir Richard Mottram, and that he had not himself become involved in "personnel matters".

Mr Byers, forced to the Commons to make a statement, said he had claimed to have no involvement because the final decision was not one for him to take.

But he went on: "If my answers on the programme gave the impression that I did not put forward a view, or make clear my views to others, that is obviously something I regret and I welcome this opportunity to clarify matters."

Mr Byers was flanked by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Chancellor Gordon Brown as he effectively acknowledged that he had lied. But with Labour MPs baying him on, and a feeble and ill-briefed Tory attack, he was given an easier ride than ministers had feared.

Mr Byers's statement was broken by sporadic Tory cries of "resign". But the belief in Downing Street was that he had done enough to get himself off the hook. One notable absentee from the front bench was the Prime Minister. Tony Blair, said a spokesman, was in Downing Street, working. He added: "Don't read anything into it." Mr Byers reaffirmed that all the key decisions leading up to the double dismissal of Mr Sixsmith and his own spin doctor, Jo Moore, had been taken by civil servants, headed by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, and his own department's Permanent Secretary.

Action had to be taken, he said, to deal with "a concerted attempt by a very small number of civil servants in the press office to undermine the department". Those actions, Mr Byers added ominously, "are being investigated".

The Government, up to and including Mr Blair, still refusing demands from all sides for Mr Byers to go, hoped that his statement would heal a potentially lethal gap between Mr Byers and No10.

For the last two days, embarrassed and harassed Downing Street spokesmen had refused to say that the Transport Secretary had been telling the truth when he told the Dimblebly programme he had stayed above the debate on Mr Sixsmith's future. This afternoon, the reason became clear - he hadn't.

Earlier, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Byers had "volunteered" to make the statement. The continuing crisis in fact left him with no choice but to speak up, amid growing complaints that he had left Sir Richard to carry the can for too long.

Sir Richard made his own public statement, most unusually for a top official, yesterday afternoon. This morning Mr Sixsmith piled on the pressure when he gave his version of events

in public for the first time. In doing so he went to war in public on his boss and on Downing Street, directly blaming the Transport Secretary for forcing him out of his job.

He accused Mr Byers of leaving Sir Richard to carry the can and he signalled that Downing Street was behind a "murky" smear campaign being waged against him.

Mr Sixsmith, speaking on the BBC's Today programme, directly contradicted Mr Byers's assertion that he did not get involved in " personnel matters". He said he was a victim of a deal which laid down that Ms Moore should go - but only if the press chief went too.

"All the indications are that it was Stephen Byers who, having got to the end of his tether I suspect with Jo Moore, decided that he would accept Jo's resignation. But I was told he would only accept Jo's resignation if I was made to resign as well," Mr Sixsmith said. "I was told it had to be a two-go-at-thesame-time deal."

In a side-swipe at Ms Moore, reprieved after she suggested that the 11 September terror attacks on America were a good moment to "bury" Government bad news, Mr Sixsmith says: "We have heard nobody should be forced to go for one mistake. It seemed to me I was being forced to go for no mistakes."

The suggestion of a No10 smear was fiercely rejected by Downing Street. The Prime Minister's official spokesman delivered a "categoric" denial - and, taking it a step further, he said the media, if they had any evidence of dirty tricks, should name names.

The real threat to the Transport Secretary's political survival today lay in the growing tension among his own civil servants - and the still unresolved question of whether he lied.

Senior figures in Mr Byers's department and elsewhere in Whitehall are said to be angry at the way Sir Richard had been propelled into the front line. But with Mr Blair determined not to lose a minister to what Downing Street sees as a media scalp-hunt, No 10 was strongly defending the Transport Secretary.

Mr Sixsmith, a former BBC foreign correspondent, pinpointed the way the Permanent Secretary had been put in the firing line. It was "very wrong that a civil servant like Sir Richard should be forced to appear in public to defend a political decision, taken by a politician". Mr Sixsmith claimed he had "no agenda" against Mr Byers or Ms Moore.

But he did not deny that he had briefed two newspapers, after being telephoned by them, over his fateful email warning against any plan to publish dismal rail statistics on the same day as Princess Margaret's funeral. It was that suggestion for which Ms Moore was blamed, and which she, backed eventually by Downing Street, strenuously denied.

Mr Sixsmith, speaking of the day his job collapsed, said: "It was in a conversation with Sir Richard Mottram...I was told it had to be a two-go-at-the-same-time deal."

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