Straw and Rifkind in clear over lobby sting
Standards ‘not breached’ despite footage
TWO former foreign secretaries have been cleared of cash-for-access allegations despite being caught on camera touting for work.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw were accused earlier this year of telling undercover reporters they would be prepared to use their positions to benefit a private firm.
But in a report published yesterday, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found ‘there was no breach of the rules on paid lobbying’ and criticised Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Daily Telegraph over the joint sting.
Last night the broadcaster said it ‘stands by its journalism’, adding it had taken the ‘unprecedented step’ of asking the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom to investigate its cash-for-access report.
And the newspaper said ‘we suspect voters will f i nd it remarkable that, despite the scandal of MPs’ expenses, Parliament still sees fit for MPs to be both judge and jury on their own conduct’.
The scandal erupted in February when undercover reporters claiming to represent a Hong Kong-based communications agency called PMR, seeking to hire senior British politicians to join its advisory board, secretly filmed the former MPs.
Sir Malcolm was said to have claimed he could arrange ‘useful access’ to every British ambassador in the world, while Mr Straw boasted of using his influence to change EU rules on behalf of a commodities firm that paid him £60,000 a year.
But yesterday, standards commissioner Kathryn Hudson found there was no breach of the rules of the House ‘ other than in Mr Straw’s case – by a minor misuse of parliamentary resources’.
Miss Hudson accused Channel 4 of using ‘carefully selected excerpts from the recordings’, with viewers ‘being led to conclusions which do not stand up to detailed scrutiny’.
In a report by the Commons Standards Committee, MPs said Sir Malcolm and Mr Straw had been ‘scrupulous in observing the requirements relating to registration of interests’.
‘By selection and omission, the coverage distorted the truth and misled the public as to what had actually taken place,’ the MPs said.
Former Scottish Secretary Sir Malcolm said: ‘It has been for me, for my family and for my former parliamentary staff a painful period.’
Mr Straw said: ‘I have been fully vindicated in this.’