Michelle Donelan is facing serious questions over her claims to Parliament that there was “absolutely no surveillance” of academics prior to her libellous allegations against them last October.
The Science Secretary has sought to distance herself from a controversial 11-page internal dossier cataloguing three years’ worth of one of the academic’s posts on X, with a source close to Ms Donelan telling i she hadn’t even read the document.
But new data appear to suggest that the dossier played a key part in the drafting of her libellous letter, which has ended up costing the taxpayer at least £60,000.
Metadata hidden within the secret dossier shows that a policy adviser for the Conservative Party created the document at 1.54pm on 27 October last year – the day before Ms Donelan shared her letter on social media
The policy adviser, whom i has chosen not to name, revised the document eight times throughout the course of the day, with the final save made at 11.54pm on 27 October, just as Ms Donelan’s civil servants were finalising her letter, as shown by Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) emails obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests (see box).
Labour has responded to the new evidence gathered by i by accusing the government of a “cover-up” and suggesting that Ms Donelan may have misled Parliament.
Changes made to libellous letter and dossier minutes before midnight
Internal emails reveal how the letter from Science Secretary Michelle Donelan that libelled academics was being worked on by civil servants and signed off late on a Friday evening just as changes were being made by a Conservative adviser to a secret dossier on one of the academics.
The messages, revealed through the FOI request from Jesus Siller, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford, show that Ms Donelan’s letter was sent to Alexandra Jones, director-general at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), at 7.52pm on Friday 27 October and that she shared it with colleagues in the department at 7.57pm.
This prompted a response from someone, whose identity has been redacted, who said: “I think these redrafts really help. Thank you everyone for disrupting your Friday night for this.”
At 9.35pm, Ms Jones sent email saying: “I need to find a lawyer who can look at this”. It asked if anyone had an “out of hours” number for the department’s legal director. At 9.59pm, another draft was of the letter was “put to MD”, assumed to be Ms Donelan.
By 11.38pm, a fresh version of the letter was sent round “incorporating secretary of state firm steers” and at 11.39pm a “final cleared letter” was circulated.
Thirteen minutes after that, at 11.54 a Conservative Party adviser made their final save of the day to the 11-page dossier on the social media activity of one of the academics.
The last email concerning Ms Donelan’s letter was sent from Ms Jones four minutes after the dossier was saved at 11.58pm. It noted that she had “added in some of the changes” suggested.
The Science Secretary has been under pressure since being forced to retract her statements and pay damages – passed onto the taxpayer – after she falsely accused two academics of sharing “extremist” views.
The controversy dates back to October when Ms Donelan called for the academics – Professor Kate Sang and Dr Kamna Patel – to be suspended from their positions on an advisory group of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). In a libellous letter to the national research funding body, that she published on X, the minister cited posts from them that she suggested showed they supported Hamas.
i revealed the existence of the dossier in November. It is split into three chapters, accusing one of the academics of “anti-racism”, “transgender advocacy” and “militant leftism”. It included screenshots, retweets, likes, posts and upcoming events due to be held by the academic, who was unaware of its existence until she was approached by i for comment.
A senior Government source has told i that Ms Donelan’s advisers had been alerted to some of the academics’ social media posts, who then pointed them out to the Science Secretary, who in turn then asked whether there were more tweets showing opposition to the Government’s position on Hamas. A special adviser had then pulled together a series of X posts into the document, they said.
Since i revealed in March that Ms Donelan had libelled two of the academics, she has tried to distance herself from the dossier. A source close to the Cabinet minister said in March that: “She hasn’t ever read the document the i is referring to and she did not order for it to be drawn up. Any claims to the contrary are untrue.”
Ms Donelan appeared to take a similar stance when she appeared before the Lords Science and Technology Committee on 12 March and was asked “what surveillance systems were behind the detection… of the original tweet”.
‘Absolutely no surveillance’
“Absolutely no surveillance at all,” Ms Donelan replied. “That would be outrageous.” She added: “There was no surveillance of this academic or any other academic.”
But the data seen by i suggests that the dossier was used to draw up Ms Donelan’s libelous letter.
Emails show that the letter was finalised for sending later at 11.58pm, on Friday 27 October, after civil servants incorporated “firm steers” from the Science Secretary. That was just four minutes after the Conservative policy adviser made that evening’s final save on the dossier about the academic’s posts (see box above).
The University and College Union (UCU), which represents the academic, said the dossier was “highly disturbing” and raises serious questions about why “the Government is compiling records on academics”.
Labour’s Shadow Science Secretary, Peter Kyle, said: “Michelle Donelan needs to clear up these reports of sinister dossiers being cooked up… and if she has misled Parliament.
“The cover-up around this libel case confirms the Conservatives have no integrity left, it took weeks for the government to admit over £34,000 was wasted on this unprofessional behaviour.”
So far, the known cost to the taxpayer of Ms Donelan’s libellous letter is actually more than £60,000 – a figure has only gradually emerged.
Costs of Donelan’s libel mount up
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) originally claimed to i that the damages paid to Professor Sang, from Heriot-Watt University, for Michelle Donelan’s libellous letter was a “nominal sum” and refused to provide any further details.
But last month it revealed that the compensation amounted to £15,000. It said it was paid without admitting liability and to avoid a further cost of “protracted legal action”. A Government source said then that this was the “full and final amount” and there were no other outstanding legal payments.
Then last week DSIT revealed in a letter to Labour Shadow Science Secretary Peter Kyle that the affair had actually cost the taxpayer more than double that amount, due to an extra £19,000 in legal fees, excluding VAT. There was a £7,785 bill for internal legal advice combined with a £11,600 bill for advice from an external private legal counsel.
Separately, FOI requests have revealed that an investigation by the UKRI into claims made by the science secretary cost £15,000 and that it spent a further £8,280 on legal advice – both figures include VAT. That brings the known bill to the taxpayer from Ms Donelan’s letter to more than £60,000, once VAT on the government’s legal costs is included.
The UKRI cleared the two academics identified in the letter Ms Donelan shared on X of any wrongdoing last month following an independent investigation and has invited them to resume their roles on its advisory board.
Sarah Munby, the permanent secretary at DSIT, said on Thursday that no “social media monitoring activity” had been “undertaken by civil servants”.
She was responding to a letter by Mr Kyle who demanded answers to a series of questions over the saga including the secret dossier.
Asked by i for clarification on Ms Munby’s claims, a DSIT official said: “The term ‘civil servant’ is well understood and would not usually be taken to include special advisers and certainly not employees of political parties.”
A DSIT spokesperson said: “These tweets were publicly available to everyone. The Secretary of State did not read the document with publicly available tweets as this is not what she asked for.
“The further information she asked officials for was in relation to governance procedures of the EDI UKRI board. This is in line with what the Secretary of State said at the Select Committee.”
Ms Donelan declined to comment.
