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KEN LIVINGSTONE is facing an official investigation for alleged misuse of public funds after giving left-wing campaigners free use of London’s City Hall at a cost of £50,000 to taxpayers.

The London mayor waived the normal hire charges for the building to enable the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) to stage two weekend conferences. He is himself a member of the antinuclear group.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats said this weekend they would be lodging official complaints with the district auditor for misuse of public funds and a “shocking” conflict of interest.

Livingstone is already embroiled in controversy over organisations championed by two of his aides that received grants for which there was little or no evidence of the money being used. Police and the district auditor are investigating.

Details of the CND events, billed as the group’s annual meetings, have revived memories of Livingstone’s management of the Greater London Council, which during the 1980s was famed for it links with CND and championed the capital as a “nuclear-free city”.

In a two-day conference last October up to 200 CND delegates took part in plenary sessions in the assembly chamber and enjoyed “live music and drink” in the London Living Room - the building’s top-floor venue which costs £6,268 to hire for a Saturday night.

According to its agenda, the event opened with a “welcome from the mayor”.

Taxpayers funded a similar conference in 2004 set up by Redmond O’Neill, the mayor’s policy director who is also a CND member.

Livingstone has given his permission for antinuclear activists to hold a third two-day event for CND’s 50th birthday next month. After inquiries by

The Sunday Times, however, a spokeswoman for Livingstone said CND would be charged an undisclosed amount.

She would only explain the change by saying it was an “international event”.

Financial records placed on the mayor’s website show that each of the earlier two-day conferences cost the taxpayer £25,000 in weekend opening costs and lost income.

On hearing that CND had been given free use of City Hall, Richard Barnes, the Tory leader in the London assembly, said: “This is legalised theft from the people of London — £25,000 would buy a newly trained police constable for a year . . . This really is a shocking conflict of interests.”

Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, said the party would lodge a complaint. “This is another example of Ken Livingstone using the office of mayor to achieve his own ends rather than working in the interest of Londoners,” he said.

The financial statement shows Livingstone personally “waived” standard hire fees to CND for weekend use of City Hall in September 2004 and October last year.

“The total standard hire charges for the chamber and conference rooms on the 11 and 12 of September [2004] will be £17,860,” one statement reads. “This income will be forgone.” A slightly larger amount was waived in 2007.

The documents also show that the £11,060 joint costs of opening City Hall for the two weekends in 2004 and 2007 were paid for by the mayor’s “international events” budget. The mayor has allowed charities, including the NSPCC and Shelter, to use facilities for receptions without charge. CND is not a registered charity.

According to current rates on the website, commercial users are charged £6,052 to hire just the chamber on a Saturday.

In recent weeks Livingstone, who is fighting for re-election on May 1, has been plagued with accusations of sleaze and financial impropriety in his office and at the London Development Authority, the mayor’s business arm.

- Gordon Brown’s donations nightmare deepened last night as another cabinet minister was accused of accepting cash through a proxy. It was claimed that a Labour party treasurer used his brother to channel more than £3,000 to Alan Johnson’s failed bid to become deputy Labour leader.

Waseem Siddiqui, the brother, said he did not know who the health secretary was but he had been asked to write a blank cheque. Siddiqui, 50, from Pakistan, has been living in Croydon, south London, on a student visa for three years, according to the Sunday Mirror.

He claimed his brother Ahmed Yar Mohammed, treasurer of Croydon Central Labour party, asked him to write the cheque for £3,334, and then gave him the money.

Johnson’s deputy leadership campaign denied any deliberate wrongdoing and said it had no reason to believe the donation came from anyone other than Siddiqui.

Links

Livingstone waives CND fee for holding its 2007 annual general meeting (see p25 of document)

Livingstone waives CND fee for 2004 AGM (see p29)

Livingstone's register of interests , including membership of CND

Agenda of AGM of CND held on October 13 and 14, 2007 (see p2-3)

CND list of forthcoming events , which shows conference marking its 50th birthday with be held at City Hall on February 16 and 17

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