Cunning plan to avoid Fox repeat

Ministerial meetings with lobbyists must be logged on an open public register to stop a repeat of the Liam Fox scandal, Michael Meacher has warned.

The Oldham West and Royton MP has tabled a Commons motion demanding the public register, which also should include topics discussed at meetings, the organisation they represent and who funds them.

And he hopes to push David Cameron for answers today in Prime Minister’s Questions. The call comes as an official report into former defence secretary Liam Fox’s links with his self-styled adviser Adam Werritty found he breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

But the report by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the country’s most senior civil servant said Dr Fox had not personally gained financially from his relationship with Mr Werritty. Dr Fox finally resigned on Friday amid a welter of allegations suggesting his close contacts with his best man and former flatmate breached Whitehall rules. Mr Werritty, who had claimed to be Mr Fox’s adviser, joined him on 18 foreign trips and arranged at least one meeting for him, despite having no official government or Conservative Party role.

Mr Meacher said: “The real lesson of the Werritty affair is that there must now be a requirement in Whitehall that all Ministerial meetings with lobbyists are logged on an open public register, including the organisation they represent, who are the members of its controlling board, and who ultimately funds it. I intend to press Cameron on this at PMQs.

“Nor is this just an isolated case of secret goings-on in high places which in a democracy should be on the public record. Only a few months ago it emerged that Cameron had met Murdoch 26 times in the previous 15 months which was precisely the period leading up to the critical decision over BSkyB which could have transformed the British media and placed Murdoch in a position of unchallengeable dominance.”