Patricia Hewitt

This article is part of the Revolving Door project of Spinwatch.

Patricia Hewitt

Patricia Hewitt (born 02 December 1948, Canberra) has been the Member of Parliament for Leicester West since 1997. She was appointed as Minister for Small Business and e-Commerce at the Department of Trade and Industry (1999-2001) before becoming Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 2001. Most recently, she served as Secretary of State for Health from May 2005 – June 2007.

Patricia’s five ways to meet a Minister

In the Dispatches programme ‘Politicians for Hire’, broadcast on 22 March 2010, Dispatches set up a fictional US public affairs company and contacted Hewitt and several senior politicians asking them if they were interested in a position on the advisory board in their London office. Hewitt attended a bogus interview and outlined to the undercover reporter five ways in which corporations could gain access to a serving Minister of State:

(1) Wining and dining

“You know when I was Business Secretary I would cheerfully accept hospitality initiations, for instance, because it was just a really useful way of getting to know business leaders rather better. Gordon is pretty against all of that.”

(2) The think-tank route

“Now the think tank and the seminar route I think is a very good one and will remain a good one and so identifying the right think-tank. Policy Exchange is a good one at the moment, Demos is another good one. And saying ok, does that think tank already have a relationship with Minister X? Can we invite Minister X to give a seminar on this subject? Your client would then sponsor the seminar and you do it via the think-tank. And that’s very useful, because what you get for your sponsorship is basically you sit next to the Minister.”

(3) Sponsor a Party Conference event

“Is a classic one, increasingly crowded for the Conservatives at the moment. A bit un-crowded for Labour last year, it used to be the reverse.”

(4) Direct invitation

“Sometimes you know just a direct invitation to have you know we want to come and see you about X will sometimes work.”

(5) Establish a presence in the Minister’s constituency

“So depending on the company if they’ve got a presence in some part of the country or there’s some link and then that fits with where roughly speaking where a Minister’s constituency is … that can be a more subtle route in … and doesn’t get trapped by the officials.”

Affiliations

• Special Consultant, Alliance Boots (http://www.allianceboots.com/) - International chemist chain
• Senior Adviser, Cinven (http://www.cinven.com/) - Private equity firm. On a salary of 55,00
• Chair of the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) board
• Non-executive director of EuroTunnel
• Member of the International Advisory Board of Sutherland Global Services
• Member of the UK government's Asia Task Force
• An active supporter of Katha, an NGO that is transforming the lives of children and their families in Delhi's slums.

Former affiliations

• Non-executive Director, BT (http://www.bt.com/) - Communications company, March 2008-March 2014

Resources

• Costello, Miles, "BT snares former minister Patricia Hewitt," Times, 13 March 2008, accessed 25 November 2008.
• Hewitt, Patricia, About Patricia Hewitt, accessed 25 November 2008.
• Ungoed-Thomas, Jon, et al., "Revealed: how minister cashed in on contacts," The Sunday Times, 23 November 2008, accessed 24 November 2008.