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Blair welcomes second report on Hinduja passport affair

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the second report of Sir Anthony Hammond into the Hinduja passport affair has underlined 'again that there was no impropriety, no wrongdoing, no passports for favours'.

Mandelson was accused of taking undue interest in the passport applications of Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja when he was a member of the Blair cabinet.

The row, which led to former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson's resignation, centred on the passport applications of Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja.

Former treasury secretary Sir Anthony Hammond, who conducted the first inquiry, was asked to reopen it after Mandelson came up with fresh evidence. He came to the same conclusion as earlier that the former Northern Ireland secretary acted 'properly'.

Giving Blair's reaction, his spokesman indicated that Mandelson might not have had to resign if the full details of the affair had been known from the start.

Welcoming the report, Blair said had the documents that Peter Mandelson made available for the second inquiry been released for the first, 'the picture of events would have been far clearer and less open to misinterpretation'.

Mandelson welcomed the second report saying it 'fully cleared' his name. "The sequence of events, including my resignation, might well have been different if the newly-found documents had been available to the prime minister," he said.

"I am not owed an apology because nobody made a mistake. I am grateful that Sir Anthony Hammond and the prime minister have fully cleared my name, which is all I ever wished, and I want to close this unhappy chapter and get on with my life outside the government."

PTI

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