Blunkett set to sell shares
Beleaguered Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett said yesterday his family will sell shares he bought in a biotech firm, DNA Bioscience.
In a written statement Blunkett said he had asked his sons to authorise trustees “to dispose of the shares.”
The decision comes after Prime Minister Tony Blair asked the Cabinet Secretary to see whether shares in the company, which tests DNA, breached ministerial rules.
Blunkett had denied claims of a potential conflict of interest over the shares in a company expected to bid for Government contracts.
He said that he would make the sale to end the “misinterpretation” of his position.
The Government will hope the sale will draw a line under the affair, but the Tories still want an inquiry into Blunkett’s conduct.
A Government spokesman said no profit would be made from the sale of the shares — reported to be worth about £15,000 — but the details have yet to be finalised.
Blunkett has accepted that he should have consulted an advisory committee, as is the procedure for former ministers, before he took a directorship at DNA Bioscience.
The row centred on Blunkett’s decision to become a director of DNA Bioscience before May’s general election, while he was out of the Cabinet, and his subsequent holding of shares in the firm.
He only held the post for a fortnight, resigning when he was appointed Work and Pensions Secretary after the May election.