Former whip facing probe

The Commons committee whose damning report last week prompted Paymaster General David Willetts to resign is to meet today to consider its next moves.

The Standards and Privileges Committee will meet in private at the Commons. Its agenda could well include whether to call a second Tory - social security minister Andrew Mitchell - to give evidence about an alleged committee-nobbling attempt.

As in the Willetts affair, the Mitchell case concerns a note written by a whip two years ago about the now-defunct Members' Interests Committee's investigation of cash-for-questions claims against Tory former trade minister Neil Hamilton.

Mr Mitchell, then a whip, was, despite Labour protests, a member of that Members' Interests Committee.