For someone who has already survived an investigation by the United States Senate into his role in the fall of Enron, being cleared by the regulator for British accountancy must have come as a minor relief for Lord Wakeham.

Yesterday, the Accountants Joint Disiplinary Scheme, which can reprimand or fine individual accountants, cleared the former Conservative minister and Enron non-executive director of any professional wrongdoing relating to the energy group's collapse in 2001.

Although Lord Wakeham was the sole professional accountant on Enron's audit committee in the years leading up to its spectacular demise, the accountancy regulator said there was no evidence that he was personally culpable.

John Wakeham, once described as someone so well connected that he “probably networks in his sleep”, was a non-executive director of Enron from 1994 until its demise in 2001. He was subject to two US investigations into the role of Enron non-executive directors, one by an Enron-appointed investigator and another by a sub-committee of the US Senate. Neither inquiry led to civil or criminal charges against any non-executive director.

Given the weight of US resources expended on studying Enron-related matters, the accountancy regulator said it was not in the public interest for it to take matters further.

Lord Wakeham's business and political skills were much in demand and he held directorships of NM Rothschild, the bank, VT, the defence group, and Bristol & West, the building society. He entered the Commons in 1974, after ten years as an accountant followed by four in business. He was chief whip in the Thatcher Government during the 1980s economic boom and, as Energy Secretary, steered the electricity industry's privatisation. As Leader of the Commons in the late 1980s, he was instrumental in the introduction of television cameras to Parliament.

His first wife, Anne, known as Roberta, was killed in the IRA Brighton bombing in 1984 and Lord Wakeham was trapped in rubble of the Grand Hotel for seven hours. He has two adopted sons from his first marriage and another by his second wife, Alison, whom he married in 1985.

Educated at Charterhouse, Lord Wakeham, 76, enjoys sailing and reading and is a member of the Garrick and Carlton clubs.

After a stint as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Wakeham was asked in 1999 by Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, to look into reform of the House of Lords.

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