Select Committee on Standards and Privileges Ninth Report


ANNEX C

Letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards from the Rt Hon John Redwood MP

  

I am writing to ask you to make further enquiries into the interests of Mr Peter Mandelson MP, to clear up the substantial comment about what he should have registered.

Recent press coverage has argued that the loan he received from Mr Robinson was on favourable terms. There is still a lack of clarity about how much interest was paid and when, and what the conditions were for the repayment of the loan. I presume that any favourable term that could not be obtained commercially in the marketplace on a loan of this size would warrant registration.

There are now also stories that Mr Mandelson has been the beneficiary of at least one free flight. I would like you to examine the circumstances surrounding this so you can come to a judgement about whether such a generous gift should also have been registered. It might also help if Mr Mandelson were asked to make a full statement of any such gifts he has received so that all of the unresolved issues can be sorted out at the same time.

The opposition has raised a number of questions about these matters, but we appreciate the need for an independent judgement on what is reasonable and what is not. We thought that a commercial loan was not usually a matter for registration, but one outside normal commercial terms would be. We also assume that free long haul flights are costly gifts and should be registered.

29 December 1998





 
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