'Cash for peerages' police brief MP

12 April 2012

The officer leading a police investigation into the alleged "cash-for-peerages" affair briefed a senior MP on the progress of inquiries.

The meeting came amid reports suggesting that police may be preparing to question Government ministers about claims that honours were offered in return for financial support for the Labour Party.

Channel 4 News quoted an unnamed source within the inquiry as saying that the police have gathered all the documentary evidence they require and now need to talk to ministers in order to conclude the investigation.

Neither Scotland Yard nor Downing Street would confirm the report, though a Number 10 spokesman indicated that police have not spoken to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The chairman of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee, Labour MP Tony Wright, told PA that he was briefed by Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the Metropolitan Police officer in charge of the investigation. But he declined to discuss the contents of the briefing.

The committee suspended its own inquiry into propriety and honours in March, in order to allow police sufficient time to complete their investigations into alleged breaches of the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.

But the MPs are keen to resume their inquiry, and Dr Wright said he had impressed upon Mr Yates the need for a timely conclusion to the police probe.

"It was a private meeting," said Dr Wright. "He wanted to bring me up to date with how things were going and I pressed on him the need for bringing this to some kind of conclusion."

Mr Blair's personal envoy and chief fund-raiser Lord Levy was arrested for questioning in the inquiry earlier this year, as was Labour donor Sir Christopher Evans, but so far no ministers are known to have been questioned.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We are not prepared to speculate on who we would or would not want to speak to in connection with this or any other inquiry." And a spokesman for 10 Downing Street added: "We don't comment on any ongoing inquiry."

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