Peter Hain and Jack Straw censured over undeclared gifts



Two senior Labour figures were strongly criticised yesterday for breaches of rules on donations.



Former Cabinet minister Peter Hain was found guilty by Westminster's sleaze watchdog of 'serious and substantial' failures in not registering more than £100,000 of donations to his Labour deputy leadership campaign.



And Justice Secretary Jack Straw was accused of being ' negligent' over his repeated failure to declare a £3,000 gift.



Mr Hain's hopes of a return to frontline politics were in tatters after the damning report by the Standards and Privileges Committee. The former Work and Pensions Secretary now faces the humiliation of being forced to apologise in the Commons.



Guilty: The reputations of Peter Hain (left) and Jack Straw are in tatters after both were investigated for failing to declare donations and gifts

Mr Hain resigned from the Government last January when the Electoral Commission triggered a police investigation into his late declaration of around £103,000 in donations.



Some 19 gifts were handed to his failed deputy leadership campaign between May and November 2007, but not listed with the Register of Members' Interests within the four-week time limit.



After a police inquiry, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the case saying there was 'insufficient evidence' to charge Mr Hain or anyone in his team.



The committee said: 'Because of the seriousness and scale of this breach and noting the considerable, justified public concern that it has created, we would ordinarily have been minded to propose a heavier penalty.



'However, we accept that there was no intention to deceive and Mr Hain has already paid a high price for his omissions.'



Mr Hain said the committee had accepted that his mistakes were 'honest'.



Mr Straw was criticised over a gift from Texas-based energy firm Canatxx Ventures.



It helped pay for the MP's 25th anniversary dinner organised by his constituency party at Blackburn Rovers' stadium in Mr Straw did not disclose the payment in either the register of MPs' interests or the Electoral Commission's donations to parties register.



The Standards and Privileges Committee found that Mr Straw did not declare the donation when it was made and also failed register it when the omission was brought to his attention in 2006.



The Justice Secretary came clean about the gift with Commons authorities only when an official complaint was made last year.



The report said: 'There has been a clear breach of the Rules of the House, in that Mr Straw unintentionally overlooked his obligation to register a donation in the Register of Members Interests.'



It added: 'Mr Straw called this a chapter of accidents. Accidents generally happen as a result of negligence, and Mr Straw has clearly been negligent in this case.'



The MPs added that they were 'surprised and disappointed' that an MP of Mr Straw's lengthy parliamentary experience had broken the very rules which he had introduced.



As Home Secretary, Mr Straw brought the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act on to the statute books in 2001.



At the time of the donation, Canatxx had applied for planning permission to build a £300million gas storage facility near Mr Straw's constituency.



Former Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears rejected the scheme after a local planning inquiry, but Canatxx is now planning to resubmit the application.



Mr Straw said: 'I have apologised unreservedly for what the committee notes was an inadvertent oversight.'



Gordon Brown's spokesman insisted the Prime Minister had full faith in Mr Straw.