Accountant MP demands widening of DTI investigation into TransTec collapse

Accountant MP demands widening of DTI investigation into TransTec collapse

Tory Shadow Chief Secretary David Heathcoat-Amory has demanded a Department of Trade and Industry inquiry be widened to include how TransTec was formed out of Robert Maxwell industry assets.

The accountant-MP said it should also extend to ‘the links between Robert Maxwell and the Labour Party and Geoffrey Robinson’.

He claimed on BBC Radio that one of the reasons for what he described as an 18-month delay in setting up the DTI probe was its potential to be ‘extremely embarrassing to the Labour Party’.

Trade secretary Stephen Byers yesterday announced the appointment of inspectors, including RSM Robson Rhodes, to investigate and report on the TransTec affair including the role of ex-Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson.Heathcoat-Amory said he would not be satisfied until there had been a comprehensive investigation wider than the narrow issue of the accounting treatment of the Ford claim for £11m.

Until then ‘we will still believe that there is a political cover-up going on’, he added.

Michael Heseltine, who as DTI Secretary ordered an inquiry in 1992 into the share floatation of Maxwell’s Mirror Group, said the new inquiry was ‘essential’ because Labour in opposition exploited similar problems in opposition to give the impression they had a monopoly on ‘proper behaviour’.

Byers orders inquiry into the collapse of TransTec

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