Conduct Of Lord Archer Of Weston-Super-mare In Respect Of Share Dealing

EDM number 374 in 1994-95, proposed by Gordon Prentice on 12/01/1995.

That this House recalls that on 13th January 1994, Lord Archer purchased the first of two tranches of Anglia TV shares and notes his statement in July 1994 that it was completely untrue that he bought shares and that such an accusation was libellous; notes that he subsequently confessed that he had made a grave error in buying shares and his later statement that the Department of Trade and Industry report completely exonerated him; condemns his unwillingness to reply to letters about these issues from the honourable Member for Pendle; calls on the noble Lord to explain why he bought shares on behalf of Mr Broosk Saib, why he was confident the share price would rise, why he asked for the transaction to be done on new account dealing terms, whether the shares were to be held as a long-term investment and, if so, whether the noble Lord or Mr Saib would pay the ú240,000 for the shares on settlement day; and calls on the noble Lord to follow the injunction of the Chairman of the Conservative Party who said in September that it would be better for the noble Lord to speak out rather than not.

This motion has been signed by a total of 36 MPs.