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In the early 1960s, gossip about Maudling, who served under Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, was rife in Whitehall.

A Whitehall official reported that a peer had even overheard two fellow ministers discussing his apparent acquisitiveness in the Carlton Club.

“Lord St Aldwyn said he had been shocked to hear ministers talking about such a matter in a club, but he had thought it his duty to report this to me,” the official noted.

“I have some reason to fear that Mr Maudling may be a little too ready to accept presents.”

Among the gifts he was recorded as receiving were “a wrist watch (£10), a camera (£42) and a package of gramophone records (value not known) from the Russians”.

In 1972, Mr Maudling resigned as home secretary over his links to the corrupt Yorkshire architect, John Poulson.