MILLENNIUM Dome organisers have persuaded Rupert Murdoch's satellite television firm to switch £12 million of company money intended for investment in Britain's schools into sponsorship of a leisure ride at the Greenwich site.
The decision by BSkyB - in which Mr Murdoch's News Corporation has a 40 per cent controlling stake - to use the money for a project so closely identified with the Government looked certain last night to prompt more Commons questions over the links between the media magnate and Downing Street.
Francis Maude, the Tory heritage spokesman, said: "So much for the Government's promise of education, education, education.
"The Government must reveal exactly who knew of BSkyB's interest in investing in an education project. They must address the fear that it was this knowledge which led to the targeting of BSkyB for Dome sponsorship. I will be seeking answers to these serious questions this week."
It is understood that BSkyB had drawn up detailed plans to offer every school in the country a free satellite television dish. The proposal was discussed with both the last government and Tony Blair's administration shortly after the election. Many ministers and officials would have been well versed in the details of the scheme, including knowledge that the television firm was anxious to link itself to a "good cause" identified by the Government.
The plan was eventually scrapped after BSkyB decided that it was too similar to BT's project - negotiated while Mr Blair was still in opposition - to link schools to the Internet.
However, other proposals for direct investment in schools by BSkyB were still being discussed when the decision was made by Mark Booth, the new chief executive, to invest most of the available money in sponsoring a zone in the Dome.
Sam Chisholm, chief executive of BSkyB when the free-satellites-for-schools idea was proposed, left last summer to become deputy chairman of the New Millennium Experience Company - the firm behind the Dome. Last night the NMEC insisted it had not known of BSkyB's involvement with the Education Department when they approached it to discuss sponsorship.
BSkyB's announcement in February that it was giving £12 million to fund the Serious Play zone at the Dome was a boost for the Government, which has been struggling to raise £150 million of private money to complete the project.
Around £400 million of lottery money is being poured into the Dome, and the political future of Peter Mandelson, the minister without portfolio and one of Mr Blair's closest allies, is riding on the success of the project.
The BSkyB zone will look at the future of leisure and include the Parallax ride, a moving pavement surrounded by an "inflated transparent skin" which rises and falls. From the top of the ride, visitors will be able to abseil, climb, slide or take a lift to the lower level where Millennium products will be displayed.
Insiders at BSkyB say their decision to sponsor the Dome was made on commercial and marketing grounds.
The company, which last week appointed Tim Allan, an aide to Mr Blair, to a senior executive post, is interested in a number of sensitive political issues including introducing digital television and the right of terrestrial channels to broadcast big sporting events.
