This is an update to:
Report: Bernie Ecclestone Bribed Tony Blair £1m For Tobacco Exemption
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Claims Tony Blair lied to Parliament over a £1million donation from Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone are to be investigated.
Commons Speaker Michael Martin vowed yesterday to look into a claim that Mr Blair misled MPs over exempting the sport from a tobacco advertising ban in 1997.
Tory MPs John Maples and Peter Luff claimed papers newly released under the Freedom of Information Act showed Mr Blair had intervened to exempt Formula 1 hours after he had met Mr Ecclestone.
They appear to show that he instructed his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, to signal his support for an exemption just hours after meeting Mr Ecclestone on October 16, 1997.
At the time of the scandal, Mr Blair said the decision was taken several weeks later and famously protested that he was a ‘pretty straight sort of guy’.
Mr Martin promised to intervene after Conservative MPs John Maples and Peter Luff told the House the new evidence proved Mr Blair had misled Parliament.
He wanted to know on what date the decision was taken to exempt Formula 1 from the ban.
But before that answer could be given, on November 12, Mr Blair told the Commons it had been a ‘ collective decision, made in the normal way’.
He also told MPs that ‘no decisions were taken’ when he met Formula 1 chiefs.
Mr Luff told MPs yesterday: ‘I understand we would know what to do were he (Mr Blair) still a Member of this House. That is not the case but it’s all the more important that the record is corrected.’
But a spokesman for Mr Blair said: “There is nothing new here. The documents released are entirely consistent with Tony Blair’s answers at the time.”
