DOCUMENTS showing how a Labour donor who is also a close aide to the chancellor was appointed to government positions have been shredded.

Officials at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) were last night forced to admit that they had destroyed records relating to Sir Ronald Cohen’s role on two Whitehall committees.

Cohen, a multi-millionaire venture capitalist, is close to Gordon Brown and their relationship is often compared with that of Lord Levy, Labour’s chief fundraiser, and Tony Blair.

Cohen has organised meetings for Brown in the Middle East and is likely to help with fundraising if the chancellor becomes prime minister.

However, their relationship has come under increasing scrutiny. Last week it was claimed that the Treasury had pushed through a knighthood for Cohen against Whitehall advice. The financier, who has given £1.3m to Labour, received the honour in 2000. The claim was vehemently denied by Brown and members of the honours committee.

On Friday Brown issued a statement denying he was trying to secure a peerage for Cohen. Treasury aides suspect Cohen is the target of briefings orchestrated by Blairites as several journalists were called with the same information on Friday afternoon. Cohen said he was not seeking to become a working peer.

The questions about Cohen have threatened to drag the chancellor into the cash for honours affair for the first time. Brown described the attempt to embroil him in the crisis as “unfounded allegations and smears”.

Treasury aides said he was “extremely happy” to co-operate with the police investigation into the scandal.

Last night there were claims that Brown could be called to give evidence to Westminster’s public administration committee, which is investigating the propriety of honours.

The latest revelation that files relating to Cohen’s appointments to government committees had been destroyed will add to the controversy.

DTI officials claim that the paperwork was shredded in accordance with “best practice” on limiting the amount of unnecessary material stored by Whitehall departments. However, recent government guidelines state that public bodies should keep important data about personnel for decades.

The shredding of the paperwork came to light after a request under the Freedom of Information Act for details about Cohen’s appointment to the “tech stars” committee and the working party on investment competitiveness. The committees were launched in 1997.

The DTI was asked for details of the position Cohen held, how much he was paid, his job description and any correspondence relating to his appointment to the two committees.

The department replied that the only remaining information was a letter of appointment to the competitiveness body.

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