November 20th, 2006

The government should restore voters’ confidence in politics by stripping party leaders of the right to nominate candidates for the House of Lords, a cabinet minister said yesterday. The proposal by Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, and a deputy leadership candidate, would prevent future controversies about donors being rewarded with places in the upper chamber.His remarks came as the loans for peerages investigation dogging Labour drew closer to its conclusion, after the police briefed that they will forward a file on the case to the Crown Prosecution Service in January. That indicates that detectives are likely to interview the prime minister within weeks.

Mr Benn told BBC1’s Sunday AM that he favoured an 80% elected chamber, a far higher proportion than that suggested by Jack Straw, who proposed a 50% elected upper house. Draft plans drawn up by the leader of the Commons also recommended that parties could nominate members as long as they were vetted by an independent committee.

But asked how public suspicion about party funding could be allayed, Mr Benn replied: “I think there might be a case for having a small proportion of people in the second chamber co-opted by the elected members on the basis, perhaps, of advice from an independent appointments commission, so there would be legitimacy. What I don’t think we can have in future is party leaders of whatever colour nominating people to serve in the second chamber and that’s why we have got to push ahead with reform of the House of Lords and why I support what Jack Straw is saying.”

His response underlined the growing concern within Labour about the impact of the investigation on the party’s reputation. Privately many are furious at Scotland Yard’s handling of the investigation and there was unhappiness yesterday as it emerged that the prime minister’s director of government relations, Ruth Turner, had been questioned on at least four occasions.

A Downing Street source insisted that Tony Blair simply wanted police to be allowed to get on with their work. John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner investigating the loans, stressed that police had not disclosed details of their investigations, in a letter to the Commons public administration committee last week. The PAC suspended its own inquiry to avoid prejudicing the police investigation, but is expected to call Mr Yates once the case is concluded.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, told reporters that he had not yet appointed barristers to advise him on whether charges should go ahead. The government’s leading legal adviser has been at the centre of a row over his ability to have the final say on whether Labour figures should face prosecution. He added that he did not expect to be interviewed by detectives as he had not been involved in Labour party fundraising.

By Tania Branigan, political correspondent, writing in The Guardian