C4 pulls ‘cash for Brexit’ TV exposé at 11th hour

A ‘CASH for Brexit’ investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme was pulled from the schedules hours before it was due to be screened today.

The documentary is said to be based on a three-month investigation into three former Tory ministers accused of offering to give advice to Chinese companies on Brexit.

Former health secretary Andrew Lansley, former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell and Peter Lilley, who was a Cabinet minister in the 1990s, all deny wrongdoing.

The programme, called Politicians For Hire: Cashing In On Brexit, was scheduled to air tonight.

The broadcaster said it raised ‘important questions about transparency and accountability in public life’ and would be shown at a later date.

Mr Mitchell said he ‘ smelt a rat’ within minutes of arriving at the meeting in Mayfair last October and realised he was the ‘target of a sting’.

In an article for The Mail on Sunday, he said he was approached by woman calling herself Fei Liu, who said she represented Chinese investors through a Hong Kong-based consultancy.

He said he contacted the intelligence

‘A tawdry attempt at entrapment’

agencies because he feared he was being targeted by foreign spies.

Lord Lansley, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, has referred himself to Parliament’s standards watchdog.

A spokesman for the peer said: ‘Lord Lansley made clear at all times that any work that he carries out has to comply with the House of Lords Code of Conduct Rules and that any contract would have to have that code written into it.

‘He has always kept his outside interests separate from his Parliamentary duties and at no time did he offer any privileged access, insider information, lobbying activity, parliamentary advice or services.

Mr Lilley –who is reportedly in line for a peerage – said he had done ‘nothing improper ’ and added that he had complained about the programme to Channel 4 and to the regulator Ofcom.

‘It was a tawdry attempt at entrapment and I did nothing improper whatsoever,’ he told the Mail on Sunday. ‘I thought it might be a sting from the beginning.

‘They said they had a budget of £18,000 but I told them I was already on the advisory board of a Chinese company, that I was comfortably off and I did not pursue the matter.’

Last night a Channel 4 spokesman said: ‘This investigation raises important questions about transparency and accountability in public life. We are continuing to work on the film which will be broadcast soon.’