Conduct Of The Paymaster General

EDM number 724 in 1997-98, proposed by Julian Lewis on 03/02/1998.

That this House notes with concern the article in the February 1998 edition of Business Age about the financial affairs of the Paymaster General and is disturbed at its claims that Robert Maxwell, having stolen ú450 million from 30,000 Mirror and Maxwell company pensioners, arranged for the honourable Member for Coventry North West to receive ú6.25 million for companies 'which were virtually worthless', that, immediately after this deal, the honourable Member 'began transferring monies to an offshore trust in Bermuda' by moving 2,445 shares from his Latchuster Property Company to his Bermuda Trust Company, that the honourable Member has channeled monies into five more offshore trusts he has set up: the NuStart Trust, the Emily Jane Trust, the Watch Hill Trust, the Franchesca Trust and the Anna Trust, that Mr Maxwell gave the honourable Member ú1 million in cash and a controlling interest in one of his companies, Central and Sherwood, to buy him out of Transfer Technology Ltd., that Madame Joska Bourgeois's bequest to the honourable Member was a 'thank you' for her having been able to buy Jaguar cars on very favourable terms and that the honourable Member assisted in and benefited from Madame Bourgeois's ú5 million tax fraud against the Belgian taxpayer; accordingly calls upon the Paymaster General to state if there is any truth in these charges; and, if they are untrue, invites him to take appropriate steps to refute them.

This motion has been signed by a total of 12 MPs.