Tories Given Top Accountancy Advice For Free

Tue, 16 Feb 2010

The UK’s top accountancy firms have provided free accountancy advice believed to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party, it has been revealed.

According to a report by The Times, each of the Big Four accounting firms - PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst and Young - have offered their services to the party, free of charge.

The newspaper revealed that while assessing Britain’s £178 billion budget deficit with Tory MPs, staff at the accountancy giants have also given advice on a new tax framework.

A Conservative Party spokesperson said: "It is a long-established practice for Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives to receive secondments from major accountancy firms ."

He added that all of the secondments had been fully declared with the Electoral Commission and on the Register of Members' Interests.

However, the move has been questioned by Lord Oakeshott, treasury spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats.

Speaking to The Times, he said: "Expert advice is welcome in opposition parties' policymaking. But the sheer scale of these contributions to the Tories' private offices risks looking like consultants keeping their foot in the door for contracts."
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