Commons grilling for editor in Aitken row

Peter Preston, editor of the Guardian, is to face an interrogation by the Commons Privileges Committee and the threat of a police inquiry over the newspaper's use of fake Commons stationery.

The House voted yesterday for an inquiry by the committee as the Government confirmed it knew months ago about the paper's subterfuge in trying to get a copy of the bill for Jonathan Aitken's stay at the Paris Ritz last September. Downing Street said Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary, knew five months before this week's chorus of complaints by MPs and ministers against Mr Preston but that Mr Aitken, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, had decided against taking further action.

The Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, called yesterday for the Privileges Committee to draw up a formal report on the decision by its senior member, Tony Benn, to breach the privacy of its hearings by publishing his own reports.

Moving the motion to refer the Guardian affair to the committee, David Wilshire, Conservative MP for Spelthorne, disclosed that he had made a complaint on Monday to the Metropolitan Police about the newspaper, and claimed Mr Preston and Mohamed al-Fayed, owner of Harrods and the Ritz, had ``concocted a plan to forge a fax'' and added: ``I am no lawyer but that sounds like a criminal conspiracy to me.''

In contrast to the carefully orchestrated attacks on the newspaper by senior Tories on Tuesday, it was left to a series of more junior Tories to criticise the Guardian in a debate watched by Mr Preston from the press gallery. Government sources last night expected the committee to limit its action against the editor to a public reprimand. After a confused debate with MPs on the same side frequently disagreeing, Mr Preston said: ``There was clearly no intention to deceive. I don't believe I have done anything unethical.''

The debate was punctuated by vitriolic attacks on Mr Preston, but Alex Carlile, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said the issue had been ``coloured by an extraordinary outburst of self-righteousness'' that had done the House no good. Mr Preston had gone beyond the limits of legitimate journalism, ``but the evidence which was confirmed as a result of the subterfuge raises matters which are in the public interest.''

Scotland Yard confirmed that a letter raising allegations of a criminal nature had been received from Mr Wilshire. ``The question of a police inquiry is being carefully considered,'' a spokesman said.

Action over Mr Benn's defiance of the Commons by publishing a six-page account of Tuesday night's Privileges Committee meeting was meanwhile put off until after the Queen's Speech in two weeks' time. Betty Boothroyd, the Speaker, said she hoped that following the committee's next meeting (scheduled for 21 November) it would make a report to the House.

Battle against sleaze, page 8

Leading article, letters, page 19

Andrew Marr, page 20

Maggie Brown, page 21