Tax-exile Tory peer set for Commons criticism

Published on Sunday 16 December 2007 21:07

THE Scottish Conservative Party's most generous donor faces Westminster criticism this week over his failure to return to the UK as a condition of becoming a peer.

Lord Laidlaw, a tax exile in Monaco, promised to return to the UK on taking up a Conservative seat in the House of Lords, but has failed to do so.

On Wednesday, the House of Commons' public accounts committee, as part of a report on the cash-for- honours scandal, will express its dismay at him failing to fulfil his promise to become a UK resident for tax purposes from April 2004.

The House of Commons appointments commission has privately complained about his failure to return to Britain in letters expected to become public this week.

Roseanna Cunningham, the SNP MSP for Perth, said last night: "Irvine Laidlaw has underwritten the failed Tories in Scotland for years and this revelation will reflect on them as being equally untrustworthy. It is high time that the Tories got to grips with this serious matter and put their funding on a proper footing."

A spokesman for Lord Laidlaw declined to comment on issues about the 64-year-old's private life, but it is understood an imminent divorce and health problems have been given to the commission as reasons for his failure to fulfil the promise.

The public administration select committee will also criticise Tony Blair's personal fundraiser, Lord Levy, for trying to prevent the all-party group publishing letters from Sir Gulam Noon about loans to Labour in the run-up to the cash-for-honours police investigation.