Stephen Byers refers himself to watchdog over lobbying claims

853AM GMT twenty-two March 2010

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The former ride cabinet member pronounced he had referred himself to John Lyon and believed he would be absolved of any wrongdoing.

The move came as vigour mounted over allegations that comparison Labour total had offering to make use of their change and contacts in lapse for cash.

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Mr Byers pronounced ""I am assured that (Mr Lyon) will endorse that I have complied with the MPs" formula of control and have entirely disclosed my outward interests.""

There was cross-party defamation yesterday of former ministers who were hold in an clandestine "sting" operation for a radio documentary.

The revelations forced Labour to pour out brazen a guarantee to make a mandatory register of lobbying that it pronounced had been programmed for the choosing manifesto.

But Tory personality David Cameron pronounced the box lifted wider questions about either the MPs and the portion Cabinet ministers they were purported to have shabby had breached rules.

"These are intolerable allegations. First of all, the House of Commons needs to control a consummate review in to these (former) Labour ministers," he said.

"But additionally the Prime Minister would wish to get to the bottom of the accusations being done about his Government."

Shadow personality of the Commons Sir George Young told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme "The allegations are utterly critical that Government process was altered to the intensity disbenefit of taxpayers and consumers as a outcome of (Mr Byers") lobbying.

"I think it is utterly wrong that contacts and believe gained when you are a apportion should afterwards be used for in isolation gain.

"It"s positively opposite the manners for MPs to run a apportion but divulgence if they have a monetary interest."

All of the MPs filmed, together with former Cabinet ministers Mr Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon, denied any indiscretion and insisted they had breached no rules.

But portion ministers pronounced the poise of their colleagues had been "appalling" and "ridiculous", and Liberal Democrat personality Nick Clegg called it "very, really sleazy".

Mr Byers was between timid MPs interviewed by an clandestine contributor posing as the deputy of a of doubtful authenticity US lobbying firm.

He told the clandestine contributor he had cumulative tip deals with ministers, could get trusted report from Number 10 and was means to assistance firms concerned in price-fixing get around the law.

The Sunday Times, that carried out the interviews with Channel 4"s Dispatches programme, pronounced Mr Byers, who hold multiform key Cabinet portfolios such as traffic and transport, longed for �5,000 a day.

The North Tyneside MP retracted his claims the following day insisting he had "never lobbied ministers on interest of blurb interests" and had farfetched his influence.

But there were evident final by antithesis parties and a traffic kinship for an exploration in to a array of process changes that Mr Byers, who called himself "a taxi for hire", pronounced he secured.

Among Mr Byers" boasts was that he had come to a tip understanding with stream Transport Secretary Lord Adonis over the stop of a rail authorization stipulate and that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson had got regulations on food labelling nice after he intervened on interest of a supermarket giant.

All parties resolutely denied the claims but the Tories and Liberal Democrats will currently list a array of Parliamentary questions looking construction from ministers about the claims and either there had been any crack of the Ministerial Code.

Ms Hewitt, who served as health secretary, pronounced she "completely rejected" the idea that she helped acquire a key chair on a Government advisory organisation for a customer profitable her �3,000 a day.

The work underneath contention would have been taken up after she stepped down at the approaching ubiquitous choosing and was no longer theme to the MPs" formula of conduct, she forked out.

Mr Hoon was reported to have longed for a �3,000-a-day price for work that would concede him to spin his domestic believe and contacts "into something that honestly creates money".

"At no theatre did I offer, nor would I try to, sell trusted or absolved report outset from my time in government," he said.

Of twenty politicians contacted by the programme-makers, fifteen concluded to encounter and 10 were invited in for interviews 9 of those being personally filmed, of that 6 underline in the documentary.

The others were Labour"s Margaret Moran, Baroness Morgan and Tory MP Sir John Butterfill.

An successful Commons cabinet called some-more than a year ago for a mandatory minute register of all lobbying wake up overseen by a absolute watchdog.

In response, the industry pronounced it would combine a series of traffic bodies to manage activities and the Government pronounced it would give the intentional agreement a possibility to infer itself.