Michael Gove has been placed under investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog.
There is scant detail about the probe other than it relates to Tory minister's register of financial interests.
Parliamentary rules means Standards Commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, keep the terms of the inquiry confidential until and those under investigation are barred from discussing the allegations until it has concluded.
However, last week the Guardian reported that Mr Gove failed to register VIP hospitality he enjoyed at a football match with a Conservative donor whose firm he had recommended for multimillion-pound personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He was entertained at a Queens Park Rangers match in 2021 with David Meller, whose company Meller Designs was awarded six PPE contracts worth £164 million following the then-Cabinet Office minister’s referral in 2020, according to the newspaper.
Mr Gove’s spokesperson told the Guardian Mr Gove’s failure to declare the two complimentary tickets he received was an “oversight” and that he had written to parliamentary authorities to inform them of the potential omission.
The MPs’ code of conduct requires them to register gifts, benefits and hospitality over a value of £300.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here