The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Lord Young sought to defuse the matter in June 1988 by appointing Sir Godfray Le Quesne QC to hold an independent inquiry to determine the facts of what happened within the Department.
Backbench MPs from all sides of the House voiced their anger and dismay at the attitude of the Government and the narrowness of the Le Quesne report's terms of reference.
It was concluded that if departmental officials had examined the affairs of the business properly in 1985 on the basis of the warnings the Department had received, it was a "virtual certainty" that they would have closed Barlow Clowes down.
[3] The case attracted unprecedented press and Parliamentary attention - the Treasury employed a team into the 1990s pursuing debts and responding to enquiries from MPs.
[4] Nicholas Ridley, who had replaced Young as Secretary of State, rejected the main thrust of Barrowclough's findings and claimed that departmental officials had acted correctly on external advice.