Watchdog accuses Government of Hinduja cover-up

Ministers and leading civil servants were accused yesterday of a cover-up over Peter Mandelson's involvement in the Hinduja passport affair.

Sir Michael Buckley, the parliamentary ombudsman, accused the Government of obstructing an official inquiry and showing "incomplete files" to his staff.

The Cabinet Office and Home Office were criticised in a report for deliberately withholding papers relating to an alleged telephone conversation between Peter Mandelson and Mike O'Brien, a Home Office minister, about a passport application by the Indian businessman Srichand Hinduja.

Allegations over this conversation led to Mr Mandelson's resignation as Northern Ireland secretary. Mr Hinduja and his brothers had donated £1m towards the Millennium Dome, for which Mr Mandelson had responsibility.

The ombudsman, who has statutory powers to investigate complaints about secrecy, condemned in the strongest terms the refusal of the Cabinet Office to release papers he requested.

Sir Michael said in the report that the Cabinet Office "appeared to be withholding papers, which they readily acknowledged existed, from my investigation. I was deeply concerned at this development. Such a refusal strikes at the very heart of my office's function," he said.

He said a lack of help from the Home Office had made it impossible for him to corroborate the account in Sir Anthony Hammond's review of the affair, which failed to reach a firm conclusion about the contacts between Mr Mandelson and Mr O'Brien. Mr Mandelson does not recall the phone call.

Sir Michael said: "Given this attitude ... I found myself in the position of being quite unable to confirm whether or not there was any information regarding the telephone conversation that could, and should, have been disclosed."

He eventually received apologies from the Cabinet Office and the Home Office. With the agreement of the Prime Minister, the outgoing Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, ensured that the papers were made available for inspection. But Sir Michael criticised the Home Office for its "clear failure to maintain their files, on what was a highly sensitive matter, in anything approaching an adequate manner".

He said that, on the information he had seen, there was no firm evidence that Mr Mandelson had spoken to Mr O'Brien about the passport application, although "it is likely on balance" that he did.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats' freedom of information spokesman, called on the Government to make a statement. "This is a very serious matter that the Cabinet Office was withholding documents from the ombudsman. This is a challenge to the very heart of the democratic process," he said.

The investigation was ordered after a journalist complained he had been refused access to papers applied for under the Code of Practice on access to government information, concerning the alleged telephone conversation. Sir Michael said the Home Office had no right to withhold information under the code because the Hammond review was not on "a statutory basis".