Select Committee on Standards and Privileges Ninth Report


APPENDIX 5

Letter to Mr Duncan Wiggetts of Herbert Smith Solicitors
from the Chairman of the Committee on Standards and Privileges

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has laid before the Committee a copy of your letter of 5 May in reply to her letter of 28 April.

The Committee is grateful for the information you have provided. It appreciates the wish of your client, the Britannia Building Society, to maintain the confidentiality of its dealings with its members, but in case there should be any misunderstanding on the point it has asked me to point out that the House of Commons has conferred upon it by Standing Order the power to send for persons, papers and records, and that the Committee reserves the right to use those powers in furtherance of its own enquiries or the Commissioner's if it should prove necessary to do so.

In your letter to the Commissioner of 7 April you explained your reasons for not supplying her with a copy of your report to the Society which she had asked for. The Committee considers that the report may assist it to reach a conclusion on the matters it is currently considering, and I would therefore be grateful if you would now send a copy to the Clerk of the Committee.

12 May 1999





 
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