Prescott 'broke Commons rules'

JOHN Prescott was accused yesterday of breaking parliamentary rules over comments he made about the Conservative former chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby.

Senior Tory David Davis said the former deputy prime minister breached rules on discussing peers when he alleged that Lord Lawson's think-tank was being funded by oil companies.

During debate on the Queen's Speech in November, Mr Prescott said he had looked into Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation. "We tend to find that such bodies are funded by the oil and coal industry and people like that," Mr Prescott told MPs.