Tories walk out of Ashcroft inquiry (From Western Telegraph)

Tories walk out of Ashcroft inquiry

1:19am Friday 12th March 2010 in

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Tory MPs walked out of a cross-party inquiry into the award of a peerage to the controversial Conservative Party donor Lord Ashcroft, it has been disclosed.

The three Conservatives on the Commons Public Administration Committee said that they will not take part in a special, one-off hearing due to be held next week, saying it would become a "political circus".

The committee chairman, the senior Labour MP Tony Wright, announced last week that members from all three main parties had agreed to the session to explore the undertakings Lord Ashcroft gave about taking up residence in the UK when he was made a peer in 2000.

It followed his disclosure that he had remained a "nom dom" for tax purposes, which meant he has not had to pay UK taxes on his overseas earnings, much of it believed be in the Central American state of Belize.

Dr Wright insisted at the time that the committee had "no interest in the party dimension of this matter".

However the Conservative David Burrowes confirmed on Thursday night that he and his two fellow Tory members - Ian Liddell-Grainger and Charles Walker - had decided that they would not take part.

"We decided that, given the timing, it was inevitable that it was going to become a political circus," he said. "It will effectively be side-tracked into political knockabout for political purposes."

He said that there was unhappiness among the Conservative MPs that it was looking only at a Tory donor and was not also considering Lord Paul, the wealthy Labour party backer who is also a non dom.

"It begs the question, if you are going to have an inquiry about propriety and honours, why isn't it extended to Lord Paul?" he said.

The committee had said that it intended to invite Lord Ashcroft to give evidence. However the Labour committee member Gordon Prentice announced on his website that he had failed to meet a deadline of 9.30am on Wednesday to respond to their invitation.