The Scottish Labour leader, Wendy Alexander, narrowly survived a potentially fatal blow to her political career yesterday when a committee of the Scottish parliament handed her a minor punishment for breaching its rules on donations. The decision came on the day Scotland Yard announced it was handing over to the Crown Prosecution Service the file on its investigation into whether Labour broke the law by accepting £650,000 in donations from intermediaries to hide the fact that David Abrahams, a Newcastle property developer, was a big donor.
Holyrood's parliamentary standards committee voted to suspend Ms Alexander for just one day for failing to declare £10,000 in donations to her party leadership campaign last year.
Three Scottish National party MSPs and one Liberal Democrat MSP voted for the suspension, while the two Labour MSPs and one Tory MSP on the committee abstained. The vote must now be ratified by the full parliament after it returns from its summer recess in September, and that is by no means assured.
Labour and Tory MSPs, as well as the independent MSP Margo MacDonald, are expected to vote down the committee's decision, leaving the SNP's 47 MSPs relying on the Greens' two votes for a majority large enough to pass the censure motion.
The committee's decision is the latest narrow escape for Alexander. After she admitted her campaign team should have disclosed the donations, she avoided prosecution earlier this year when the Electoral Commission and the Crown Office decided she had no case to answer.
All seven MSPs on the committee agreed the case was complex. Alexander had sought guidance from Holyrood officials, who wrongly said she did not need to declare the gifts, and legal advice on her failure to declare was divided.
Keith Brown, the SNP chair of the committee, said: "I think these facts should be taken in mitigation ... however, it is up to each member to make a declaration."
In London Labour will be anxiously waiting the result of the CPS deliberations on the Scotland Yard investigation.
Scotland Yard said: "We have had regular consultation with the CPS since the inquiry began on November 30 2007 and it is now a matter for the CPS to consider the evidence, advise us on whether any further inquiries are necessary and whether any charges should be brought."
Peter Watt resigned as Labour's general secretary after it emerged that he knew Abrahams had donated money to the party via friends and colleagues to keep his own name secret.
Source: guardian.co.uk
