Hain guilty over failure to register £130,000 donations

PETER Hain's chances of a Cabinet comeback were shattered today after he was found guilty of failing to register more than £100,000 of donations to his Labour deputy leadership campaign.

Westminster's sleaze watchdog found there had been "serious and substantial" failings and ordered the former Cabinet minister to apologise to the House of Commons.

The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee accepted that Mr Hain had not demonstrated any "intention to deceive" but that was unlikely to be enough to guarantee his return to Government.

After the committee announced last month that the MP would face no action over the late declaration he signalled a desire to return to the Cabinet.

In a statement today, Mr Hain said: "The Cabinet Secretary stated that I complied fully with the Ministerial Code, the Crown Prosecution Service exonerated me and now the Parliamentary authorities have also accepted that the mistakes I made were honest mistakes." However, the watchdog dismissed the idea that Mr Hain's workload as both Work and Pensions Secretary and Welsh Secretary was an excuse for the errors.

"This is a case of an experienced Member, a Cabinet Minister at the time, failing in his duty as a MP to register donations within the time required by the House," it said.

"We understand that the pressures on Ministers and on front-benchers can be onerous, but we cannot accept - and we are sure that none of them would suggest - that this excuses them from their obligations under the rules of the House." The report added: "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, the watchdog said Mr Hain "has already paid a high price for his omission", a reference to the loss of his job.

Mr Hain resigned from the Government last January when the Electoral Commission triggered a police investigation into his late declaration of about £130,000 in donations.

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

Standards Commissioner John Lyon identified a change of campaign manager in early April as an "important factor". All donations were properly registered until May, when there was a "breakdown within his campaign organisation of the system for notifying him of his obligations to register", according to Mr Lyon.