Electoral Commission will not investigate Coulson payments

The Electoral Commission will not investigate allegations that former Conservative Party director of communications Andy Coulson, broke the law in failing to declare payments from his former employer News International while working for the Conservative Party.

Coulson, who resigned from News International in 2007, reportedly received regular payments from the company as part of a settlement of the remainder of his contract, as well as the use of a company car and private healthcare, after he was taken on as David Cameron's director of communications.

The Electoral Commission was asked by Labour MP Tom Watson to investigate whether the severance payments, in contributing to Coulson's overall earnings and benefits, amounted to a party political donation, and therefore broke the law in not having been declared.

But the Commission has responded to Watson to inform him that it has found "no evidence" that the rules governing political donations were breached, and that it would not open an investigation into the matter.

Watson has also written to the parliamentary standards commissioner to make a formal complaint over Coulson's alleged failure to declare the payments in the register of members' interests, and called for an investigation into whether the failure amounts to a breach of the House of Commons rules.

According to the rules governing those registering for a parliamentary pass, anyone receiving more than £329 pounds within the calendar year from the same source, if the occupation will benefit in any way from the passholder's access to parliament, must declare the earnings.

A Conservative Party spokesperson said that it is "not part of the human resources process to discuss severance payments from previous jobs with potential employees".

In a statement issued last week, the Conservative Party said it had no knowledge of Coulson's severance arrangements with News International prior to last week's reports. A later statement added that the alleged payments were a "private matter" and "would not constitute donations in kind to the Party as they were linked to his previous employment with News International, not with the Conservative Party".

Giving evidence to the Commons culture, media, and sport select committee in 2009, Coulson told Watson that he was not receiving any other income during his employment by the Conservative Party.

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