9. E-mail to the Commissioner from
the Executive Assistant in the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards, 3 October 2006
For information -
I had a call from [ ], Head of Office for Jack Straw.
In April 2004 a gas storage company called Canatxx sponsored a
reception in Mr Straw's constituency to mark his 25 years as MP.
Ben Wallace, MP for neighbouring constituency (in which Canatxx
has had a failed planning application) wrote to Mr Straw shortly
after the reception asking for details about [it]. According to
[the official] the matter was not dealt with immediately and Mr
Wallace has been pursuing the matter since then. A further request
from him produced the information that Canatxx provided £3000
worth of champagne for the reception, which was also attended
by 7 other Labour MPs and 3 Labour peers. Mr Straw is asking whether
he should have registered the benefit, and what implications there
are for the other Members.
I discussed this with [the Registrar] and went back
to [the official] with the following advice. If asked at the time,
the Registrar would have advised registration by Mr Straw, but
the other Members would not have needed to register (based on
value of hospitality received). [The official] will probably advise
Mr Straw to register now and write an apology to Mr Wallace, who
he believes will make a complaint. I said that, with the knowledge
of a possible complaint, we could not go any further in advising
Mr Straw what to do.
3 October 2006
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