14/08/2013

Coalition To Hand Over £520k Will Bequest

The coalition government is to hand over £0.5m to the Treasury, after it was left to the UK by a nurse who died last year.

The Tories and Lib Dems had initially treated the money as a political donation, as nurse Joan Edwards had left the £520,000 sum to "whichever government is in office."

It was then divided up between the coalition, with the Lib Dems getting £99,423 and Tories £420,576.

But following calls from Labour and some Conservative MPs, the coalition said it would give up the funding.

The news follows yesterday's publication of party donors by the Electoral Commission.

Nurse Edwards was born in Bristol in 1921, and lived there all her life. She never married, but worked as a nurse and midwife before dying last year.

Her bequest made her the biggest donor to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in the second quarter of the year.

(IT/CD)

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