Sleaze watchdog investigates Jeremy Hunt
EMBATTLED Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is to be investigated by Westminster’s sleaze watchdog over claims he failed to register donations from media firms.
Parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon is responding to a complaint by Labour MP Stephen McCabe.
It concerns meetings organised by private companies between July 2009 and March 2010 when Mr Hunt and his deputy Ed Vaizey were in opposition.
These were described as “networking events” where senior Conservatives met figures from the creative industries.
Mr Vaizey recorded the events in the register of interests as donations in kind worth around £27,000, but Mr Hunt did not mention them in his entry in the register, said Mr McCabe.
Mr Hunt has since amended his entry after accepting he attended three meetings, worth a total of £7,471, sponsored by the advertising agency DDB UK, the Groucho Club, and M&C Saatchi.
His spokesman declined to comment on the allegations, but said Mr Hunt would co-operate with the commissioner’s inquiry.
Jeremy Hunt is to be investigated by Westminster’s sleaze watchdog
Labour has demanded Mr Hunt’s resignation over an “accumulation of evidence” that after the Coalition came to power his relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s News International was too close when he was overseeing the company’s £8billion bid for broadcaster BSkyB.
Mr Hunt insists he acted with propriety.