Conduct Of The Hon Member For Westminster North And Walterton And Elgin Community;homes

EDM number 879 in 1994-95, proposed by Clare Short on 22/03/1995.

That this House welcomes the decision by John Magill, appointed Auditor to Westminster City Council, to conduct a full investigation into allegations of a dirty tricks campaign, conducted by the council against Walterton and Elgin Estates, during the transfer of Walterton and Elgin Estates under the provisions of the Housing Act 1988; notes that this decision follows the referral to the Auditor of a detailed report into these matters by an independent expert; notes that the campaign against WECH included setting up a bogus group called Walterton Residents Against Takeover and that, supposedly at their request, the Right honourable Member for Westminster North wrote to the Housing Corporation in March 1989 opposing the WECH plans and making unsubstantiated and defamatory allegations against residents involved in WECH; calls on the Right honourable Member to disclose how and why he obtained a draft copy of Department of the Environment Guidelines in advance of their publication and gave them to Westminster Conservatives in March 1989; notes that the Minister responsible told Panorama last year that it would have been improper to leak these guidelines; and finally call on the Right honourable Member to explain he why lobbied Ministers to permit grants under the assisted purchase scheme to be given to persuade tenants to move out of estates in marginal wards that had been designated for sale as part of the council's gerrymandering strategy.

This motion has been signed by a total of 56 MPs.