GEOFF HOON was under new pressure yesterday after the Hutton inquiry was told that he had set firm conditions on David Kelly’s appearance before the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

The Defence Secretary said that Dr Kelly, whose name had been revealed a few days earlier, should be questioned on Andrew Gilligan’s evidence to that committee, and not on the wider issue of weapons of mass destruction and the preparation of the Iraqi dossier. He also suggested that Dr Kelly should be questioned for no more than 45 minutes.

The revelation of the attempt to curb questioning could pose problems for Mr Hoon, who is expected to be called next week. It comes after the evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday from Sir Kevin Tebbit, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, who said that although Dr Kelly was in favour of the war, some of his views on the threat from Saddam’s weaponry would be “uncomfortable” for the Government if aired.

The proposed deal was outlined to the hearing yesterday by Donald Anderson, chairman of the committee, who gave a graphic account of Dr Kelly’s appearance before the committee on July 15 shortly before he died. He wrote to Mr Hoon saying that he shared his understanding and promising to put the agreement to the committee; a substantial minority had disagreed.

Recapping on what had been agreed with Mr Hoon, James Dingemans, QC, suggested that Mr Anderson had settled on Dr Kelly giving evidence for 45 minutes and “also so far as you can control the committee not to answer questions on weapons of mass destruction and the dossier”. Mr Anderson replied: “I thought this was reasonable because the committee had called a number of witnesses on weapons of mass destruction and could have called Dr Kelly during that time.”

When Dr Kelly gave evidence, the session lasted about 50 minutes. Mr Anderson watched a video of Dr Kelly’s testimony on Tuesday this week to remind him of his demeanour and events that day.

Of his feelings towards Dr Kelly that day, Mr Anderson said: “I would like to think that I personally would always treat witnesses with respect, particularly a witness as distinguished as Dr Kelly. He had shown no signs of distress. I hope that I would have been respectful personally.

“There were times when Dr Kelly was laughing and certainly he is clearly a man of considerable intellect. He could see which questions were coming and, when he did not want to answer, he was clearly on top of the subject and he did not do so.”

Mr Anderson said that fans in the committee room were turned off to allow Dr Kelly to be heard: “I think we all took our jackets off and it was certainly quite a hot day, but I don’t remember feeling inconvenienced by the heat.”

Mr Dingemans asked: “Did you pick up whether or not Dr Kelly appeared to have been prepared?” The inquiry has been told that officials spent some time suggesting possible areas of questioning to Dr Kelly, although they have denied that he was given answers.

Mr Anderson said: “I honestly didn’t think about that at the time, although I have subsequently learnt that there was an extensive briefing provided for Dr Kelly by the MoD and a briefing which went well beyond the parameters which the Secretary of State had provided for me in his letter.

“We are talking about a late gentleman who was used to dealing with the press. A distinguished scientist. And he appeared to me to be in control of things. Clearly a man of great competence and one who was not overborne.”

Mr Dingemans said: “We have seen, I think we have all seen, the video of Dr Kelly giving evidence and some of the questions being put to him. Did you consider the questions that were being asked of Dr Kelly to be fair?” Mr Anderson replied: “I think that the tenor of the committee hearing, taken as a whole, was reasonable and fair and that there was a degree of respect. If I recall, one of my colleagues said specifically to Dr Kelly that he had acted in an entirely honourable way, and in my summing up I wholly endorsed that view.”

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