DAVID BLUNKETT made a desperate and costly effort to save his Cabinet career last night by asking his sons to sell the shares he bought in a DNA testing company.

The Work and Pensions Secretary, his future as a minister in doubt for the second time in a year, bowed to mounting pressure to dispose of the shareholding after anguished discussions with the Cabinet Office and Tony Blair.

But The Times has learnt that seven weeks before taking up his job with DNA Bioscience Mr Blunkett was told that he had breached the ministerial code of conduct by failing to consult the advisory committee on business appointments over an earlier appointment. He was told in three separate letters from the committee that the code required him to consult it.

In a letter to Mr Blunkett released last night, Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, spelled out that consulting the committee is compulsory. “Having received the advice of the advisory committee, it is for the former minister to decide whether or not to accept it, and it is this part of the process . . . which is voluntary and advisory,” he told Mr Blunkett.

Mr Blunkett bought the shares in DNA Bioscience for £15,000 but City estimates have suggested that they could be worth up to £300,000 if the firm were floated on the Stock Exchange. He promised to sell them without making a profit.

Mr Blair met Mr Blunkett yesterday afternoon, but by then senior officials in No 10, and apparently Mr Blunkett, had clearly decided that he had no choice but to sell the shares to avoid any perception of a future conflict of interest.

But Mr Blunkett will come under pressure today over his failure to consult the appointments committee on taking up his position with the DNA company and on an earlier job with Indepen Consulting, a firm of business consultants.

The exchange of correspondence between Mr Blunkett and Lord Mayhew of Twysden, the committee chairman, which has been seen by The Times, makes clear that Mr Blunkett was told that he was obliged to consult the committee about taking outside jobs.

It also shows that in taking the Indepen post last January Mr Blunkett was in potential breach of the advisory committee’s guidelines, under which former Cabinet ministers would normally be expected to wait for three months before taking an appointment. Mr Blunkett was not hiding the appointment and had logged it in the Register of Members’ Interests in February but because he did not consult the committee it could not advise him on whether and when he should take the job.

Mr Blunkett’s office insisted last night that the letters from Lord Mayhew made plain that the system was a voluntary one, which was how the confusion arose. A spokesman added that Mr Blunkett had taken the job with Bioscience while Parliament was prorogued for the election. He had since told the committee that he had fully intended to consult it after Parliament resumed. In the meantime, however, he was recalled to the Government.

He has accepted that he should have consulted the committee.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Commons Leader, will draw the full correspondence to the attention of Sir Gus today. He said: “Having read it I can only conclude that there has been a wilful disregard of the rules for ministers leaving government. He could not have been told much more clearly what he had to do.”

The first letter from Lord Mayhew was sent on December 21 last year, six days after Mr Blunkett resigned. The committee routinely tells all former ministers that the ministerial code says that ministers should seek advice from them.

A second letter was sent on March 2 this year, after the appointment was referred to in the press.

Lord Mayhew told Mr Blunkett that he had raised it with him because he wondered whether Mr Blunkett thought that recording it in the register constituted approval by his committee. That was not so and he told Mr Blunkett that normally a minister would wait for three months before taking up an outside appointment.

The final letter was on March 15, after Mr Blunkett had apologised for not informing him about the appointment. Lord Mayhew said that the apology was not necessary because it was voluntary whether former ministers took the advice offered to them.

In his statement last night Mr Blunkett said that DNA Bioscience did not have any contracts with his department or the Child Support Agency, for which he has responsibility, and added that he had made no representations to any government department or agency on its behalf since returning to the Government, nor had he provided advice to the company.

Read the full text of the letters at www.timesonline.co.uk/politics

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