Hain guilty of breaching standards
Thursday, 22 January 2009 6:21 PM
By Ian Dunt
Peter Hain, Labour MP and former work and pensions secretary, has been found guilty of "serious" and "substantial" breaches of the code on donations.
Mr Hain failed to register donations of £103,000 to his campaign for the deputy leader of the Labour party.
In a statement, Mr Hain said: "The cabinet secretary stated that I complied fully with the ministerial code, the crown prosecution service exonerated me and now the parliamentary authorities have also accepted that the mistakes I made were honest mistakes.
"I have been asked to repeat my apology on the floor of the Commons which I am happy to do."
Mr Hain - a celebrated anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1980's - came second-to-last in the deputy leadership campaign, which was won by Harriet Harman.
The Neath MP was found guilty by the Commons standards and privileges committee.
In its report, the committee said Mr Hain's responsibilities as a front-bencher did not excuse the mistakes.
"This is a case of an experienced member, a cabinet minister at the time, failing in his duty as a member of parliament to register donations within the time required by the House," it said.
"We understand that the pressures on ministers and on frontbenchers can be onerous, but we cannot accept - and we are sure that none of them would suggest - that this excuses them from their obligations under the rules of the House."
Mr Hain quit his Cabinet post to clear his name and the committee appear to have taken that on-board when specifying a punishment.
"Because of the seriousness and scale of this breach and noting the considerable, justified public concern that it has created, we would ordinarily have been minded to propose a heavier penalty," the report said.
"However, we accept that there was no intention to deceive and Mr Hain has already paid a high price for his omissions."
Last year, the crown prosecution service (CPS) said it could not find enough evidence to bring charges against Mr Hain. He promptly said he felt "vindicated" by the decision.
"Debts suddenly started appearing, bills started arriving that I knew nothing about," he told Radio 5 Live at the time.
"Instead of focussing on reporting the donations within the 30 days, I focused on trying to clear the debts. Then when I realised... to my horror that we hadn't met the 30-day deadline, I immediately went to the Electoral Commission."
Donations to the campaign went to Hain4Labour, an organisation of Labour party members with its own bank account.
The organisation failed to report all donations within the 30-day period stipulated by the Political Parties and Referendums Act 2000.
An unheard of thinktank called the Progressive Policies Forum was used to funnel over £50,000 to his campaign. But the CPS said it was unable to demonstrate Mr Hain was the "person responsible for dealing with donations" and therefore dropped the case.
But John Lyons, parliamentary commissioner for standards, then continued his investigation, which had been suspended while the CPS investigated the matter. It is Mr Lyon's inquiry which led to today's judgment.
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