David Cameron suffered a double embarrassment yesterday as the parliamentary sleaze watchdog endorsed a complaint that he had abused Commons facilities for party fundraising.

The Conservative leader was rebuked for using his Commons office for private lunches with wealthy donors from the City who paid £50,000 a head to meet him. He was also one of 11 Tory MPs found to have used Commons dining rooms for patrons’ club lunches to raise money from supporters for their constituency parties.

Sir Philip Mawer, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, said that it would be unwise and unjust to take further action against these MPs, but the rules for private dining clubs meeting at the Commons are to be tightened to prevent future abuses.

Mr Cameron admitted that he was at fault over the more serious charge of breaking rules on fundraising activities within his own Commons office, part of a huge suite of rooms in the Norman Shaw South building. He admitted hosting seven such lunches since becoming leader in December 2005, all of which took place after his weekly jousts with Tony Blair at Prime Minister’s Questions. The most recent was in January.

Attendance was confined to the Leader’s Group, an elite fundraising club within the Conservative City Circle, with an annual fee of £50,000. Its leaflets advertised the chance to “meet with the leader several times a year at small dinners or lunches and in his office after Prime Minister’s Question Time”.

The Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker complained to the commissioner that such lunches were a breach of the code of conduct for MPs. Sir Philip upheld his complaint, saying that there was a clear principle that Commons offices were provided to MPs for discharging parliamentary duties.

Mr Cameron at first tried to argue, in a letter to the commissioner, that there were no specific rules governing MPs’ use of their offices and said that previous Tory leaders had done the same. “I, like my predecessors, have always thought it reasonable for me to use my office to meet all those it is necessary for me to meet in my role as a party leader, including those who give money to the Conservative Party,” he wrote to Sir Philip.

After the commissioners’ findings, however, Mr Cameron wrote to apologise to the cross-party Committee on Standards and Privileges, which hears complaints about MPs. “I want to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly for inadvertently contravening the code in respect of the use of my parliamentary offices. I would like to assure the committee that this will not happen again,” he wrote.

Given Mr Cameron’s full apology, and a pledge not to hold further fundraising lunches in his Commons office, nor to mention his office in promo-tional literature, the committee decided that no further action was necessary.

The Tory leader was however, dragged into a second, wider inquiry by Sir Philip into complaints that Tory constituency dining clubs were routinely misusing private Commons dining rooms for party fundraising.

The Labour MPs Kevan Jones and John Mann alleged widespread abuse of dining rooms by patrons’ clubs and other organisations linked chiefly to local Tory associations. They complained of 26 MPs, including Mr Cameron, sponsoring such events.

Sir Philip dismissed the complaints against 13 MPs, saying that there was no evidence linking them directly to party fundraising, but said that he was unable to dismiss those against Mr Cameron and ten others because their dining clubs offered lunches at the Commons as part of a wider package designed to generate Tory funds.

He added, however, that it would be unwise and unjust to recommend any disciplinary action because this was common practice unchallenged for many years. Instead, he recommended rule changes.

On report

Case to answer

Michael Ancram, Tony Baldry, David Cameron, Jonathan Djanogly, Alan Duncan, John Gummer, Charles Hendry, Mark Hoban, Bernard Jenkin, Mike Penning, Mark Prisk

Complaint dismissed

Richard Bacon, James Dudderidge, Michael Gove, Damian Green, John Horam, Michael Howard, Stewart Jackson, Robert Key, George Osborne, Grant Schapps, Robert Spink, Richard Spring, Graham Stuart

Source: Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

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