Rifkind steps down over ‘cash for access’ allegations

Former Foreign and Scottish secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind is to stand down as Conservative MP at the General Election, following a television sting which allegedly showed him offering services for cash to undercover reporters.

Rifkind, who is MP for Kensington and Chelsea, is also standing down as chairman of Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee. He denies any wrongdoing.

In a statement, he called the allegations made by Channel Four’s Dispatches programme “contemptible” and thanked supporters.

His constituency party would need time to select a new candidate, he said.

“I had intended to seek one further term as MP for Kensington, before retiring from the House of Commons. I have concluded that to end the uncertainty it would be preferable, instead, to step down at the end of this parliament,” he said.

Rifkind has a majority of 8,616 in Kensington, where he stood after losing Edinburgh Pentlands in 1997.

In the Dispatches programme Rifkind was recorded telling undercover reporters: "I am self-employed - so nobody pays me a salary. I have to earn my income." He was suspended from the Conservative whip yesterday.

Another former foreign secretary, Labour’s Jack Straw, also suspended himself from his parliamentary party after appearing on the programme. Both men referred themselves to the Parliament’s standards watchdog.