Anti-sleaze body snubs Campbell

A damaging rift between Downing Street and Parliament's anti-sleaze watchdog opened up last night when the Wicks Committee turned down an offer to interview Alastair Campbell in private.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life revealed it had turned down the chance to attend a "seminar" with Mr Campbell as part of its investigation into government special advisers.

Downing Street made the offer after rejecting a request from the committee for the Prime Minister's director of communications and strategy to appear before it in public for cross-examination.

The committee, chaired by Sir Nigel Wicks, took the unprecedented step of publishing letters from Number 10.

The committee's inquiry into the Government's special adviser system, entitled "Defining the Boundaries within the Executive", has covered the role of spin doctors and examined the Martin Sixsmith affair in detail.

Mr Campbell, with Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's chief of staff, and Andrew Adonis, head of the Downing Street Policy Unit, had all been asked to appear before the watchdog but refused to attend.

In a letter to the committee, Sir Richard Wilson, the outgoing Cabinet Secretary, said it was "well established" that Downing Street staff did not talk publicly about their roles. But he said the committee might find it helpful to have "background briefings" from individuals and offered "a private seminar on the record with staff from Number 10".

Under the compromise, the participants would meet behind closed doors and then agree a public record of the meeting. Publication would fall short of the verbatim evidence released of other witnesses' testimony.

Sir Nigel said the committee had turned down the offer because it would be inappropriate to depart from normal practice. He repeated his request for public interviews and pointed out Geoff Mulgan, the director of the new Downing Street Strategy Unit, had given evidence to the Commons Public Administration Committee.

Sir Nigel invited Mr Mulgan, Michael Barber, head of the Number 10 Delivery Unit, and Wendy Thompson, head of the Office for Public Service Reform to give evidence in the committee's next sessions next month. But in a letter dated 13 August , Sir Richard replied that no staff at Number 10, including Mr Mulgan, Mr Barber or Ms Thompson, would be offered for public questioning.