MP demands probe into Labour’s Enron links
The British government was today facing demands for an inquiry into the Labour Party’s links with the collapsed US energy giant Enron and its accountants Arthur Andersen.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Matthew Taylor called for the Commons’ Public Administration Committee to launch an inquiry into the party’s ‘‘extremely close links’’ with the two firms at the centre of the massive US financial scandal.
‘‘Labour have chosen to build very close links with business on a pretty dubious basis where they have received money and help on the one hand from businesses benefiting very much from Government policy on the other,’’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘‘We know that in the United States Enron used extensive political contacts to seek to further its interests and there is good evidence of the same happening here in the UK.
‘‘Taking on former Labour employees to lobby for a change in gas policy and bingo, gas policy changes; paying for tables at the Labour Party conference and seeking direct contact at the time of the takeover of Wessex Water and bingo, that is approved.’’
He said Labour’s ties with Andersen went even further. The accountants had been effectively barred from government business for 12 years, since the DeLorean scandal, until Labour came to power in 1997.
‘‘They took the approach of building very close links with Labour - free work on building Labour economic policy between 1992 and 1997, extensive crossover of staff that has continued with Labour in government,’’ he said.
‘‘This free work appears to have paid off because just after the General Election they were brought back into government business and have been absolutely at the centre of what has been happening in government since and with some very questionable reports that have backed the Labour Government.’’
Mr Taylor said that an explanation was also needed from the Tory former energy secretary Lord Wakeham - now chairman of the Press Complaints Commission - who was an Enron director and sat on the company’s audit committee.
‘‘I think that he also needs to say what his role was,’’ he said.
