MPs Inquiry into Cash for Peerages To Go Ahead Even If No Charges Are Made

It's been known right from the start of the cash for peerages scandal that there would be an MPs inquiry into this sordid affair and that it has been put on hold while the police complete their investigation. While most of the attention has been on the developments in that investigation, it looks as if the Commons Public Administration Committee inquiry might also be quite interesting when it begins.

The committee is also prepared to call Jonathan Powell, Ruth Turner and John McTernan as well as Gulam Noon, Chai Patel, Barry Townsley, and Sir David Gerrard. The committee's inquiry will go ahead even if the police inquiry does not lead to charges being made. This is important because Tony Blair's friend Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, feels that he can be impartial enough to have a say on whether or not charges are made and has refused to relinquish his right to intervene in the inquiry.

Lord Goldsmith's impartiality has been exposed as a sham on previous occasions, notably in his revised decision to declare the invasion of Iraq legal and in his decision to support Blair in closing the SFO investigation into the corruption surrounding BAE and the Al Yamamah deal. In other words he could potentially scupper chances of the case going to court. The MPs inquiry might not be able to make charges but it will be public and as it's a cross-party committee it can't be interfered with in the same way.

It will be interesting to know when the Commons Public Administration Committee can begin its inquiry, although like the police investigation it will probably reach its conclusions once Blair has stepped down.