Standards and Privileges

Helen Jones Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

May I begin by echoing the thanks of the Leader of the House to the Commissioner for Standards and to the Committee on Standards and Privileges? The nature of the matters that they had to investigate required a detailed investigation by the commissioner and careful scrutiny by the Committee, and the whole House is grateful to them for their diligence.

The matters under consideration that have led to the motion on today’s Order Paper are extremely serious ones that concern breaches of the rules over the very long term. No one should underestimate their seriousness. The commissioner found that from 2001 the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) submitted lodging agreements that gave a false impression of his relationship with his landlord and of their shared use of successive London properties. The commissioner found that he claimed higher rent for the use of two London properties than was justified either under the terms of the lodging agreement or as a reflection of the arrangement that he had for living with his partner in those properties.

The commissioner also found that the right hon. Gentleman wrongly claimed for building work on the second property that should have been covered by the rent. In addition, he dealt with the separate matter of wrong claims for phone bills, which, as Members who have been here for some time will know, were not claimable under the additional costs allowance.

I think it fair to remind the House that the commissioner reached his conclusions based on the standards expected at the time, and not under a retrospective reinterpretation of the rules. [Interruption.] A Member on the Government Front Bench is saying that that is not right, so perhaps I can clarify the matter for him. Claims for phone bills in Somerset and for a mobile phone were judged by the commissioner not to be claimable under the additional costs allowance, because the ACA related to a London property. Those were the rules at the time.

In considering the report, the Committee made it clear that it agreed with the commissioner that from 2005 onwards the right hon. Gentleman’s main home was, as a matter of fact, in London, not in Somerset. The rules at the time made it clear that any hon. Member who was in doubt about which property they should declare as their main home should have sought advice. The right hon. Gentleman failed to do so.

The Committee endorses many of the commissioner’s conclusions. It makes clear the seriousness of the breaches in agreeing with the commissioner’s conclusion that while the arrangement for the first property may have represented a good deal for the landlord, it did not represent a good or even a reasonable deal for the House. The Committee also makes it clear that the breaches in relation to the second property were even more serious, because the right hon. Gentleman had made a significant financial contribution to the purchase and upgrading of the property.

The right hon. Gentleman has said that he was concerned to preserve his privacy. However, it has always been the rule of the House that when personal interests and the public interest conflict, matters should be resolved in favour of the public interest. Sadly, we therefore have to conclude that, because the breaches were serious and took place over a long period, the penalty that the Committee proposes of a suspension from the House is the right one. The Opposition therefore support the motion.