Reid says there's no sleaze involved

Ministers Failed to Declare Expenses When in Opposition

Armed Forces minister John Reid and the cabinet minister responsible for open government, David Clark, say it had actually been a working visit which led to lives being saved in Bosnia.

The row over Dr Clark, who was shadow defence secretary at the time, and his then deputy Dr Reid relates to a three-day trip to the Richemond Hotel in Geneva, where both met Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Dr David Owen and other players in the bid to end the war in Bosnia.

A Tory politician, John Kennedy, who had links with Karadzic, arranged the trip and it is claimed that he settled the bills. But Dr Clark says that he believed then that the United Nations had paid for the hotel and he still believed that now.

The ministers said if they were mistaken, then they regretted this. The Labour Party has denied this could be in any way be described as an example of sleaze. The Government's chief whip, Nick Brown, insisted that he regarded the matter as closed.