Blair cash-for-honours discussions 'went unrecorded'

Published on Friday 15 February 2008 21:12

NO WRITTEN records have been kept about negotiations between 10 Downing Street and police over Tony Blair's cash-forhonours interviews, it emerged yesterday.

Mr Blair was questioned by detectives as a witness three times between December 2006 and last June.

As he became the first sitting prime minister questioned in the course of a criminal inquiry, his aides are widely thought to have warned police that interviewing him as a suspect under caution would have forced his resignation.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who led the Metropolitan Police probe, told MPs in October he had been made aware of the potential "risk and impact" of his decision.

He also confirmed that there were contacts with Downing Street over when Mr Blair's diary would allow questioning.

But in response to a Freedom of Information request, the Cabinet Office insisted no correspondence concerning the arrangements had been located in either its "paper or electronic" records.

A spokesman for the department – which provides administrative support to No 10 – refused to comment on whether the records existed before but had been deleted.

"All we can say is that, for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, the information requested is not held," he said.

Angus MacNeil, the SNP MP who made an early complaint to police about the alleged sale of honours, said: "We have to remember, firstly, that there was no prosecution because the CPS did not believe there was a high enough probability of a successful action. But this latest disclosure does reinforce the feeling that there is more to all of this than meets the eye."