North-East MP, Stephen Byers, denies any wrongdoing (From The Northern Echo)

North-East MP, Stephen Byers, denies any wrongdoing

8:36am Monday 22nd March 2010 in

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DAVID CAMERON yesterday demanded an investigation after senior Labour MPs were secretly filmed apparently offering their expertise for cash.

The Tory leader joined cross-party condemnation of former ministers – including North Tyneside MP Stephen Byers who called himself “a cab for hire” – caught in an undercover “sting” operation for a television documentary.

Labour was forced by the revelations to rush forward a promise to enforce a compulsory register of lobbying which it said had been planned for the election manifesto.

But Mr Cameron said the claims raised wider questions about whether the MPs had broken sleaze rules and urged the Prime Minister to probe potential breaches within the Government itself.

“These are shocking allegations,”

said the Tory leader.

“I have been warning for some time that lobbying would be the next scandal to hit politics.

“First of all, the House of Commons needs to conduct a thorough investigation into these (former) Labour ministers but also the Prime Minister would want to get to the bottom of the allegations being made about his Government.”

All of the MPs filmed, including Mr Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon, denied any wrongdoing and insisted they had breached no rules.

But Cabinet ministers said the behaviour of former colleagues had been “appalling”

and “ridiculous” and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg called it “very, very sleazy”.

Mr Byers, a former trade and industry secretary, was among retiring MPs interviewed by an undercover reporter posing as the representative of a fictitious US lobbying firm.

He told the reporter he had secured secret deals with ministers, could get confidential information from Number 10 and was able to help firms involved in price-fixing get around the law.

The Sunday Times, which carried out the interviews with Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, said Mr Byers, who held several key cabinet portfolios, wanted up to £5,000 a day.

The MP retracted his claims the day after his interview – insisting he had “never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial interests” and had exaggerated his influence.

But there were immediate demands by opposition parties and a trade union for an inquiry into a series of policy changes that Mr Byers said he secured.

Among Mr Byers’ boasts was that he had come to a secret deal with Transport Secretary Lord Adonis over the termination of the National Express east coast rail franchise, and that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson had got regulations on food labelling amended after he intervened on behalf of a supermarket chain.

All parties firmly denied the claims but the Tories and Liberal Democrats said they would table a series of Parliamentary questions seeking clarification from ministers about the claims and whether there had been any breach of the Ministerial Code.

Mr Byers also faces being reported to the Commons sleaze watchdog but said he was confident any investigation would show he had not breached the code of conduct.