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Former UK foreign secretary resigns from Parliament post amid "cash for access" scandal

Xinhua, February 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind on Tuesday resigned from his post as chairman of the Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee amid an alleged "cash-for-access" scandal.

He made the decision after being secretly recorded in a video bragging about his ability to help foreign companies arrange "useful access" to meet every British ambassador in the world.

The video, filmed by undercover British journalists who pretended to be staff of a foreign company, also showed Rifkind saying: "I am self-employed - so nobody pays me a salary. I have to earn my income."

He also mentioned in the video that he usually charged "somewhere in the region of 5,000 pounds (about 7,719 U.S. dollars) to 8,000 pounds" for half a day's work.

Rifkind, who served as Britain's foreign secretary between 1995 and 1997 and is now a member of the Parliament (MP), has been slammed by some British media and his political opponents as a liar, on the grounds that he is actually paid more than 60,000 pounds a year as an MP.

Critics also voiced suspicion that Rifkind's business interests might harm his role as chairman of the Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.

On Tuesday, Rifkind admitted that he might have made "errors of judgement," but denied any wrongdoing.

"None of the current controversy with which I am associated is relevant to my work as Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament," he said in a statement.

Announcing his resignation, he added: "However, I have today informed my colleagues that while I will remain a member of the Committee, I will step down from the Chairmanship."

He said that he did not want the work of the committee to be "distracted or affected by controversy as to my personal position."

"I have concluded, therefore, that it is better that this important work should be presided over by a new Chairman," he explained.

Also caught up in the video was another former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was recorded as saying that he was able to operate "under the radar" and had helped change European Union rules for a company which paid him 60,000 pounds a year.

Both officials have referred themselves to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to request an investigation over the matter. (1 pound = 1.54 U.S. dollars) Endit