PwC gave PM free advice

PricewaterhouseCoopers offered free accountancy services to Gordon Brown's leadership campaign, it has emerged.

The PM's entry in the register of members' interest discloses the gift.

A spokesman for the firm told Accountancy Age this week: 'We provided tax and financial advice to his leadership campaign fund. It was provided purely on a pro-bono basis.'

The spokesman added that the firm provided advice to parties 'across the political spectrum.'

'We remain apolitical,' he added.

PwC and other big firms' closeness to government has long attracted interest from left-wing critics who say they do work for parties to win lucrative consultancy deals from Whitehall.

PwC has advised extensively on PFI deals, and senior partner Kieran Poynter is currently carrying out a review of HM Revenue & Customs' e-security for the chancellor, after the loss of the child benefit data discs.

But the relationship has not all been plain-sailing. In 2000, during a heated debate over controlled foreign companies tax rules, Brown's Treasury publicly dismissed the firm as a 'tax avoidance adviser'.

Austin Mitchell, Labour MP for Grimsby, said: 'I think PwC has done so well out of this government in terms of contracts and consultancies that they should have provided accountancy services not only to Gordon Brown but to all of the leadership and deputy leadership contenders. Then some of them would not be in the mess they are in.'

Further Reading:

Go to the Register of Members' Interests

Tories call in PwC to advise on tax