| Author | Message | | gchq | | Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 7:48 pm Post subject: Whose shirt is the hairiest? |
| From Channel 4 News
MPs are queuing up to pay back their expenses tonight. Some are paying back minuscule amounts. Others, like Labour minister Philip Hope, are paying back sizeable amounts - over £40,000 in his case! Hazel Blears is apparently finding £13,000 from somewhere, although that still doesn’t begin to dent the money she’s made from churning her properties.
But there is good news hidden in all this, too. The invincible Vince Cable is free of any involvement with this reckless enterprise of expenses. Gary Gibbon is doing some maths and looking in some dark corners, at seven, on 4.
TREADING ON THE GREEN SHOOTS
The governor of the Bank of England has warned that neither he nor anybody else actually knows what’s happening to the British economy, except whatever it is isn’t going to get better any time soon. Mervyn King has revised growth estimates slightly down, and although he’s not used the words “green shoots”, he didn’t need to because he can’t see any. Faisal Islam is deconstructing the latest facts and figures.
JON SNOW’S BLOG
Expenses, recession, war: http://bit.ly/2GKxLX
FAISAL ISLAM BLOG
Green shoots need stronger roots: http://bit.ly/57m6E | |  | | gchq | | Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 11:15 pm Post subject: MPs’ repayments of expenses pass £100,000 with more to come |
| MPs’ repayments of expenses pass £100,000 with more to come
The Times
14 May 2009
The cost of MPs’ desperate attempts to repair their bond of trust with their electors over the expenses scandal soared past £100,000 yesterday and was mounting fast.
A health minister promised to return £41,709 paid to him for furnishing his second home, as the public coffers began to benefit from an outpouring of anger at MPs.
Phil Hope said he was returning the cash, claimed for furniture and fittings over five years, because the damage done to “perceptions of my integrity” had been a massive blow to him.
As Gordon Brown and David Cameron argued in a deeply subdued House of Commons over how best to implement reforms that all parties now accept are necessary, Mr Hope and other MPs took matters into their own hands and started repaying the money
More than a million expenses claims by MPs over the past four years are to be scrutinised independently in an attempt to restore public trust in politics. But many MPs have decided to act now rather than be pushed into it later.
Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, said she was responding to public “outrage and the anger” by paying £13,332 under special arrangements to the Inland Revenue in lieu of capital gains tax (CGT).
Margaret Moran, Labour MP for Luton South, is returning £22,500 she spent on treating dry rot at a property in Southampton.
Mr Hope, who has a slim 1,507 majority at Corby and East Northants, insisted that all his claims had been within Commons rules but said he needed to repay the money “to try to restore the trust and relationships I have with my constituents”.
Mark Lazarowicz, a Labour backbencher (Edinburgh North and Leith), said he was going to repay £2,675 of his claims for legal and professional fees because they were “much higher than many of the public would be prepared to accept”. The sum is half of what he claimed for the fees in connection with his London flat.
Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader, is paying back £1,490 spent on interior design.
Many MPs are taking the decisions to repay cash on their own, some after chats with their whips. It is known that Mr Brown spoke to Ms Blears over the CGT issue but she had already decided to make the gesture of writing a cheque for the taxman.
Several Tory frontbenchers have already been ordered by Mr Cameron to reimburse the taxpayer for what he called “excessive” claims.
Mr Brown said MPs must prove themselves “worthy of the public’s trust” after the scandal. He said MPs should apologise for any errors made, put them right and set about creating a new system that would be seen as “wholly fair”.
As the spotlight also fell on Liberal Democrat MPs, leader Nick Clegg said he wanted to scrap the system that allowed MPs to escape CGT on property sales.
During the feisty Prime Minister’s Questions session, Mr Cameron appealed for leadership to act now on reforming the system. He said: “The issue is not so much whether the rules were obeyed. The issue is about the rules themselves. How much needs to be paid back is not a legal issue, it is a moral and an ethical issue and it requires some political leadership to sort it out.”
Mr Cameron called for all MPs’ expenses to be published online and for the MPs’ £10,000 annual communications allowance to be axed.
Last night the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party urged all Labour MPs to publish their expenses themselves instead of waiting for House of Commons authorities to release them.
Tony Lloyd, MP for Manchester Central, said he would be publishing his own expense claims in his local newspaper on Monday. He added that MPs should act on their own initiative as a matter of urgency “as a first step to meeting our constituents’ anger”. | | | | gchq | | Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 12:37 am Post subject: MPs' expenses: As Gordon Brown blusters... |
| MPs' expenses: As Gordon Brown blusters, David Cameron shows the mark of leadership (or more sideshows...)
The Telegaph
14 May 2009
If words and actions are what define us and our leaders, then this week has given us the measure of David Cameron and Gordon Brown. Each has been put on the spot by a crisis that promises to reshape British politics. One has passed the test; the other is still trying to find the exam room. The public wants political leadership, not leaders who play politics.
For once, the Prime Minister's fondness for dividing lines comes in handy. The Telegraph's revelations about MPs' expenses allow us to separate those who lead from those who follow; those who speak for us from those who speak at us; those who – to use the current buzz words – "get it" from those who don't. By the time Mr Cameron pointed them out in the Commons yesterday, Mr Brown's failings were all too familiar.
Go back and study the clip of Mr Brown arriving at Number 10 in June 2007, newly anointed by the Queen as her first minister. How do those words sound now? "Strong in purpose, steadfast in will, resolute in action in service to what matters to the British people"? Or how about "I have heard the need for change"? Or even "I will reach out beyond narrow party interests"? Then watch how afterwards, with the photographers shouting at him to wave, Mr Brown hesitates and looks about, his arm flapping at his side.
For days now people have been shouting at him to do something, anything. His party is in despair, reduced to watching in envy as Mr Cameron sets the pace, and squirming in embarrassment at Mr Brown's attempts to catch up.
The nadir for many was reached on Tuesday night when the Prime Minister resorted to the old trick of calling in selected journalists in time for the 10 o'clock news bulletins. Mr Brown intended his "extreme action" – the adjective itself speaks of panic – to knock Mr Cameron's own action on Tory expenses into the background, but the result was otherwise. The impression was of a petulant politician insisting, in the beautiful phrase of Ann Widdecombe, that his shirt was hairier than the other guy's.
This week will prove significant in Mr Cameron's progress towards election day. In what he has said and done, the Conservative leader has not only demonstrated his knack for staying ahead of the public debate and thereby shaping it; he has displayed the courage and conviction a leader must possess if he is to confront adversity.
Mr Cameron's parting words to his MPs after telling them to get off the gravy train on Tuesday were plain: "You chose me as your leader. That means giving you a lead, and that's what I'm doing." If they sounded familiar, it was because he said much the same to his party when he came to the top job: "I will lead you out of Opposition and into power."
Again, yesterday, Mr Cameron moved the debate on beyond Mr Brown's grasp, a footballer effortlessly keeping the ball away from an opponent. First he invited Mr Brown to scrap the £10,000 communications allowance for MPs – which funds publicity in their constituencies and is a scandal in its own right – and then suggested it was time to save the taxpayer money by reducing the size of the Commons. On both Mr Brown could only bluster about inquiries, but he should know that on the latter point already some in his Cabinet are thinking along those lines.
Every day brings evidence to support the charge first articulated by Mr Cameron that Mr Brown is a 20th century politician at sea in the 21st. This does not just mean that the tieless informality of YouTube loves the Tory leader but hates Mr Brown. It is about the kind of politics each chooses to pursue: where Mr Cameron favours consultation, engagement with voters, and risk, the Prime Minister is steered by the calculating factionalism and power politics he learned from pre-1997 Labour or his hero Lyndon B Johnson.
On the Labour side they speak of a weak character that puts politics above leadership. There is a palpable despair that, even when all the evidence shows that politics is the last thing a disappointed nation wants to hear about, Downing Street and Mr Brown in public say "cross party consensus" but in private still talk about "dividing lines" and wealthy Tories.
When the PM summoned – there is no other word for it – Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg to discuss expenses reform before all this emerged, he opened by thanking them for agreeing to discuss his plan. When the Tory leader objected to Labour's idea for a no-questions-asked "clocking on" fee in place of the second homes allowance, Mr Brown accused him of wanting to protect "rich people with expensive houses".
It will be small comfort to those inside Number 10 that the panic over expenses and future revelations has for the moment stilled Labour talk of unseating Mr Brown. A June putsch remains just wishful thinking while Westminster waits for the elections to deliver their verdict.
Fatalism has gripped Labour. Around the Cabinet table there are no volunteers to move against the leader. The only one with the power to persuade him to go voluntarily is Peter Mandelson, who has no intention of giving anyone the excuse to accuse him of betrayal.
So the future for the party now is drift, as those on deck try as they might to avoid any more controversies that would further expose the weaknesses in Mr Brown's character. A reshuffle either in June or July looks certain, with the possibility of Jacqui Smith going voluntarily to give Mr Brown an excuse to settle the team to lead the party into the election. Some speak of David Blunkett returning to replace Hazel Blears in the Communities portfolio so she can spend more time with her property portfolio. But there is no reliable sign that Mr Brown will move Alistair Darling, Lord Mandelson or David Miliband.
As a nation we have a thing or two to teach politicians about words and actions. Study closely the torrent of words in emails and letters pouring into the Telegraph and you will admire, beneath the justifiable anger, the common sense and fairness of voters who even now still believe in both the ideal and the reality of our parliamentary democracy.
For actions, you needed look no further than Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire shortly after lunch yesterday, where hundreds of people stood in the rain to greet the four soldiers whose bodies had been flown back from Afghanistan. For all the rage the expenses affair has produced, this country remains one ruled by instincts of public decency, intelligence and reason.
It is a small miracle, I reckon, that even as more shaming behaviour by the ones we entrusted with our votes is exposed today – some of it surely criminal – the electorate holds fast to its belief in the importance of Parliament and the need to treat MPs fairly in their pay and conditions. My, how so many of them do not deserve that simple faith. The public may also conclude that we have a leader who is fit to be prime minister. It's just that he's sitting on the wrong side of the House. | | | | gchq | | Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 2:11 pm Post subject: BREAKING: MP suspended over £16,000 expenses |
| BREAKING: MP suspended over £16,000 expenses for non-existent mortgage
Yorkshire Post
14 May 2009
Elliot Morley: ‘I made a mistake, I apologise for that.’
Mistake? Isn't it fraud? (gchq)
A FORMER Labour Minister who claimed more than £16,000 for a non-existent mortgage on his home has been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party.
After the revelations he claimed £800 a month over 18 months for a mortgage which had already been paid off, Elliot Morley was summoned to a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Labour Chief Whip.
The Scunthorpe MP subsequently referred himself to Parliament's sleaze watchdog and Mr Brown announced his suspension this afternoon. He has also been suspended from his post as the Prime Minister's envoy on climate change.
Mr Morley's statement of apology in full »
Mr Brown said: "Where disciplinary action is necessary it will immediately be taken.
"Today we suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party Elliot Morley because the allegations that have been made against him are serious."
Mr Morley's future in parliament is in serious doubt and he also faces the prospect of legal action after a campaign group made an official police complaint and said it would launch a private prosecution if Scotland Yard would not investigate.
Following this morning's meeting, Mr Morley said: "I have today asked John Lyon, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, to look into my case to demonstrate that there was no intent (to overclaim).
"I have repaid in full the money involved, which came to over £16,000."
Mr Morley said he would be meeting his constituency party within the next couple of weeks to discuss whether he can stand as Labour's candidate in the next general election.
"Obviously, I will make a judgment on the current situation, but what matters is my local party," he added. "It is in their hands."
Villagers voice outrage over MPs mortgage expenses »
Chief Whip Nick Brown confirmed Mr Morley's case would also be discussed by the party's ruling National Executive Committee next Tuesday, sparking speculation he may be expelled from the party altogether.
Mr Brown has also spoken to Labour MP Fabian Hamilton, who claimed thousands of pounds in second home allowances for his family home in Leeds while listing his mother's property in London as his main residence.
What MPs have claimed »
The furore today led Conservative Party leader David Cameron to repeat his promise to throw out of the party any of his MPs who refused to pay back expenses considered excessive by a party panel.
Tory MP Andrew MacKay became the first to resign today, stepping down as Mr Cameron's aide in the Commons over "unacceptable" expenses claims, the party announced.
The Bracknell MP voluntarily submitted his claims to party officials.
Mr MacKay, who is married to Bromsgrove Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed the full second-home allowance for interest on their joint mortgage for a London home until April this year.
But at the same time his wife also claimed the full annual sum for mortgage interest on a constituency home - meaning they appeared to have two second homes but no main home, sources said.
A spokesman for Mr Cameron said: "That examination of Mr MacKay's past allowances revealed an unacceptable situation that would not stand up to reasonable public scrutiny.
"Although Mr MacKay maintains those arrangements were agreed by the Fees Office, he resigned this morning with immediate effect."
Mr MacKay has also agreed to appear in front of the scrutiny panel to discuss how much of the allowance should be paid back.
The Telegraph had reported this morning that Mr Morley's overclaim was not uncovered by the Commons authorities but official Land Registry documents showed the mortgage on the Scunthorpe property was paid off in March 2006.
In 2007 he also "flipped" his designated second home to a London house which he was renting out to fellow Labour MP Ian Cawsey, member for Brigg and Goole.
For four months, he was claiming full mortgage interest on the house, while receiving £1,000 a month in rent on the same property from Mr Cawsey, paid from parliamentary expenses.
Meanwhile the Telegraph claimed Mr Hamilton, Labour MP for Leeds North East, admitted in 2004 to over-claiming on his expenses by nearly £3,000 after he charged for the full cost of his mortgage as well as the interest-only element to which he was entitled. He has since repaid the money.
Mr Hamilton claimed that he spent the majority of his time in the house owned by his mother, a retired judge, until her death in 2005 and that the claims were "an accident".
He owned up to spending £23,083 in 2007-08 – the maximum allowed – for "mortgage interest and upkeep costs on a flat in London for use whilst I am in Parliament".
But the MP did not mention the regular claims made for decoration, repairs and furnishings at the two properties, including two televisions, an £800 bed, new windows, wardrobes and a DVD player.
Records show that Mr Hamilton negotiated a deal with the fees office to reduce part of the debt he had accrued in expenses claims by submitting receipts for furniture.
The MP told the Telegraph: "The mortgage claims were quite an accident. I didn't realise I was claiming until the fees office pointed it out. It was an oversight on my part and I offered to pay it back."
Later Mr Hamilton issued a statement saying: "The Telegraph claims that I mistakenly claimed for more than the interest on my mortgage on my constituency home in 2004, but in fact I claimed for the interest on an equity release loan by mistake and paid it back when told that this could not be claimed.
"I have never claimed anything from the taxpayer for my mother's home, though of course I have paid towards its upkeep."
The revelations came as the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party instructed all Labour MPs to publish their expenses claims themselves, rather than wait for the House of Commons authorities to release them. | | | | gchq | | Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 6:08 pm Post subject: The scale of the expenses crisis is becoming clear |
| From Channel 4 News
You may be sick and tired of the MPs’ expenses farrago. But the truth is that today the sheer scale of the thing is only now beginning to become clear.
Inside all the flak of moats, swimming pools, tennis courts, jars of Branston Pickle, small bags of mouse poison, lurked a very serious danger of criminality.
The police will not yet say whether they will be questioning the former minister, and until today Gordon Brown’s climate change envoy, Elliot Morley.
Morley is dismissing his erroneous claims for mortgage interest payments on his second home and his failure to stop them when the mortgage was paid (netting him £16,000) with an apology, saying there was no intention to deceive and blaming the system.
Legal sources I have spoken to tell me there could be a case to answer under both the fraud act (over the specific claim) and under the theft act.
If it came to it there’s a real danger that the Metropolitan Police may be put off investigating Morley by the chaotic scenes that surrounded the arrest of Damien Green MP (Tory frontbencher).
Morley’s misdemeanour has been followed by the discovery by David Cameron’s office that the MP husband and wife Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride had each claimed for different second homes. Mr MacKay, needless to say, blamed not himself but the fees office for suggesting he did it.
Tonight we’re trying to look at the bigger picture: how damaging is this and how far does it reveal a deeper malaise in our parliamentary system? Krishnan will be at Westminster with both voters and parliamentarians in a kind of town hall meeting, and I will be here probing whoever from the political classes is prepared to put up.
MPS’ EXPENSES – RECEIPTS V RHETORIC
http://bit.ly/q0Com
SNOWBLOG
Expenses, recession, war: http://bit.ly/2GKxLX | | | | gchq | | Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 12:07 am Post subject: The married couple who took taxpayers for £282,731 |
| The married couple who took taxpayers for £282,731
The Independent
Andew Grice
15 May 2009
Andrew MacKay is forced to quit as key Cameron aide over his non-existent second home
Andrew MacKay with his wife Julie and their son
David Cameron was under mounting pressure last night to end the political career of one of his closest allies as the MPs' expenses scandal claimed its first casualties.
Andrew MacKay resigned as Mr Cameron's senior political and parliamentary adviser after he admitted claiming a "second home" allowance when he only had one property. He received £140,952 on the London home he shares with his MP wife Julie Kirkbride, who listed it as her main home and claimed £141,779 for a house she bought in her Bromsgrove constituency. Mr MacKay, who does not have a home in his Bracknell constituency, admitted his arrangement now looked "strange" but insisted it had been approved by Commons officials. Asked if he had done anything wrong, Mr MacKay said he had made "an error of judgement that looks wrong". Tory officials say Ms Kirkbride has done nothing wrong and had also had her arrangements approved by the Fees Office. No action is planned against her.
Mr Cameron has promised to take a tough line against Tory MPs who have made suspect claims but he appears reluctant to withdraw the party whip from Mr MacKay – which would ban him from being a Tory candidate at the general election. A survey of 1,400 Tory grassroots members found that 66 per cent believe Mr MacKay should cease to be an MP. The ConservativeHome website found that 82 per cent of Tory members want MPs facing questions about their behaviour to face deselection meetings.
On a day of shame for Parliament, Elliot Morley, a former environment minister, was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party after it emerged he had claimed £16,000 for a mortgage that did not exist. The police have received a complaint about his actions from the Taxpayers' Alliance. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said there was a case for the police to be called in to investigate the claims made by some MPs.
Meanwhile, two Labour peers face a six-month suspension from the House of Lords after an investigation into allegations they were prepared to take "cash for amendments". A senior Labour source said Parliament was "having a collective nervous breakdown."
Today, The Daily Telegraph accuses the Justice Minister Shahid Malik, of claiming £66,827, the maximum amount allowed for a second home over three years, despite securing his main three-bedroom home in his constituency of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for a discounted rent of less than £100 a week. He denied breaking any rules, saying the expenses system was flawed.
The newspaper discloses that Clare Short, the former International Development Secretary who now sits as an independent candidate, claimed the full cost of her mortgage for two-and-a-half years when she was entitled only to the interest. She was asked by the Fees Office to repay more than £8,000. Last night she said she made an "honest mistake" when she switched from an interest-only to a repayment mortgage in 2003.
But the damage over the expenses saga continued to hurt Labour most, with a YouGov survey in The Sun today putting Labour on 22 per cent, its lowest-ever rating, the Tories on 41 per cent and the Lib Dems on 19 per cent.
Labour denied dithering over Mr Morley's case. Although it did not act until after the Telegraph revealed his £800-a-month mortgage claim, Labour sources say the party did not know the full details until yesterday. The party's national executive committee will consider disciplinary action against other Labour MPs when it sits next Tuesday.
Cameron aides denied he had gone soft over Mr MacKay to protect a close adviser. They said there was no need to discipline him because he had promised to abide by the verdict reached by a new Tory scrutiny panel being set up by Mr Cameron. It is likely to order Mr MacKay to repay the money.
Speaking on the BBC's Question Time last night amid a row over the expenses saga, the Lib Dem Home Affairs Spokesman Chris Huhne joined the growing number of MPs calling for the Speaker, Michael Martin, to step down after comments he made on Thursday.
Douglas Hogg, the former Agriculture minister, backed away from a confrontation with the Tory leader. On Wednesday, he cast doubt on the Tory panel's legitimacy. Last night, he agreed to repay £2,200 he claimed for maintaining his country estate "in recognition of public concern". He admitted the cost of cleaning his moat "was not positively excluded from the claim".
Greg Barker, a Tory environment spokesman, will make a "voluntary payment" for capital gains tax | | | | gchq | | Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 1:59 am Post subject: Shahid Malik, his house and the slum landlord |
| Shahid Malik, his house and the slum landlord: MPs' expenses
The Telegraph
14 May 2009
Shahid Malik, his house and the slum landlord: MPs' expenses
Shahid Malik MP and Tahir Zaman Photo: PA
Since being elected in 2005, Mr Malik has claimed the maximum amount allowable for a second home, amounting to £66,827 over three years. Last year, he claimed £23,083 from the taxpayer for his London town house, equivalent to £443 per week. The Telegraph can disclose that the “main home” for which Mr Malik pays out of his own pocket - a three-bedroom house in his constituency of Dewsbury, West Yorks - has been secured at a discounted rent of less than £100 per week from a local landlord who was fined for letting an “uninhabitable” house.
Mr Malik also rents a constituency office from the same businessman, Tahir Zaman.
Mr Malik’s arrangement means he pays below market rent for his main home while billing taxpayers thousands for his second home in London. His second home claims have included £2,600 for a home cinema system — which was cut in half by officials — and £65 for a court summons for not paying council tax.
Neither Mr Malik nor Mr Zaman would say last night whether they had signed a formal agreement for the lease of the constituency house, although Mr Zaman said the rent was below the market rate. The landlord’s wife said the house appeared to be occupied by a constituency worker during the week.
The case of Mr Malik’s expenses illustrates the potential problems of an MP being able to nominate what appears to be the family home as his second home, enabling him to claim tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, faced similar allegations after she was shown to have claimed her family home in Redditch as her second house.
However, the Home Secretary said she had always paid rent to her sister at a commercial rate.
As a minister, she also said she spent the majority of her time in London.
Mr Malik’s arrangements relating to his constituency home will also raise questions as to whether a minister could be beholden to a businessman who offers him discounted rent. Mr Zaman lives next door to Mr Malik’s home in Dewsbury. Mr Zaman and Mr Malik also have a rental agreement relating to the constituency office in a nearby shopping parade. Mr Malik claims for the cost of renting his office from parliamentary office allowances.
Yesterday, following a week of disclosures about MPs’ expenses by The Daily Telegraph, Elliot Morley, the former minister, was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and Andrew Mackay lost his job as David Cameron’s aide.
Today, details of claims made by married MPs are disclosed. A former Cabinet minister is also exposed for over-claiming more than £8,000 on her mortgage.
Mr Malik bought a home in Peckham in 2001 for £85,000 — four years before he became an MP. After being elected to Parliament in 2005, he nominated the property as his “second home” and began claiming the maximum amount available in parliamentary expenses.
During the first year as an MP, he made 13 separate claims for different items of furniture or electrical appliances totalling more than £7,000. The fees office blocked several items and he eventually received £6,147. He also regularly claimed the maximum allowable £400 a month for food.
The most contentious item was a £2,600 home cinema system including a 40in flat-screen television. The fees office paid half, after initially rejecting the claim.
It blocked claims for a portable DVD player and an iPod during the same year.
The spending on the Peckham house continued during 2007-08, with 24 separate claims for furniture, decorating and electrical goods. These included a £671 fireplace, a leather daybed sofa and a £510 fitted wardrobe.
Mr Malik was also reimbursed for a £730 “massage chair”. Last night, the MP said he had a “back problem”.
The Justice Minister said he would repay the £65 he claimed for his non-payment of council tax courts summons.
In total, in three years, Mr Malik claimed £66,827 for the property - £18,173 less than the original cost of the house.
However, the spending on his “second” London home stands in stark contrast to the cut-price arrangements for his constituency property.
Mr Malik’s landlord last night told The Daily Telegraph: “He is definitely paying well under the market value rent.”
When asked if Mr Malik paid £100 a week, Mr Zaman said: “I’m renting [out] the next door [property], [it’s] half the size
of his property, they pay me more rent than what he’s paying me.”
In 2005 Mr Zaman pleaded guilty to letting a house to a family of five despite a council enforcement order classing building as “uninhabitable”.
He was fined £450 and ordered to pay £200 costs.
Mr Zaman receives more than £4,000 annually from Mr Malik in office rent. The money is funded from a separate system of parliamentary expenses.
The landlord’s wife who lives in a neighbouring property said that Mr Malik only used the property at weekends and a member of his staff stayed there during the week.
“He [Mr Malik] is a good friend and neighbour,” she said. “He comes here just at the weekends... Usually he comes here alone.”
Mrs Zaman said a constituency worker she knew only as Paul occupied the house during the week.
Yesterday, when asked whether someone stayed in the property during the week, Mr Malik would only say: “I am happy to confirm that I do not rent it out or derive any income from it.” Last night, in a statement issued by Mr Malik he strongly denied wrongdoing.
He said: “Dewsbury has been my home since 2004 when I moved there a year prior to becoming the MP. Overall I spend the majority of my time in Dewsbury because, although I spent half the week in London when Parliament is in session I spend most of recess at my main home in Dewsbury.
“The vast majority of my costs [on the London house] have gone on food, insurance, council tax, gas, electricity, security and mortgage interest.
“All these costs are regarded as basic essentials in terms of the ACA [expenses system].”
He also said his rejected claims had been a misunderstanding.
He said: “With hindsight of course I would have acted differently on these items but as a new MP, with a Green Book that was full of subjective rules and a guidance team that knew the limits for items, but chose not to share them with MPs, it was inevitable that almost every MP would have items questioned at some point.”
Shahid Malik
Job: junior minister at the Ministry of Justice
Salary: £95,617
Total second
home claims
2004-05: N/A
2005-06: £21,634
2006-07: £22,110
2007-08: £23,083 | | | | gchq | | Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject: Shahid Malik resigns as Justice Minister over second home |
| Shahid Malik resigns as Justice Minister over second home rent
The Telegraph
15 May 2009
The Labour MP for Dewsbury resigned from his post amid suspicions that his rental arrangements over his second home may have breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct.
The Telegraph revealed today that Mr Malik was paying well below the market rate for his constituency home in West Yorkshire, which he rents from a landlord who has a conviction for letting an uninhabitable property.
More story and video | | | | gchq | | Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 10:42 pm Post subject: Inconsistencies over MPs' expenses? |
| Channel 4 News
If it wasn’t so serious it’d be funny. One minute Shahid Malik was protesting his innocence, next he was being resigned by Downing Street.
The Justice Minister will step down pending an investigation into whether he should have declared the fact that his constituency home (the one he says is his main home) was being rented at below market rates.
It’s understood he was paying about £100 a week while claiming thousands in expenses and mortgage interest for his London home. So technically this is a question not of expenses but of the Ministerial Code and the Register of Members Interests.
At the end of the grimmest and most damaging week in British politics I can remember, I’ll be talking to Margaret Beckett about the collective breakdown and the apparent inconsistencies.
Why did Shahid Malik have to resign when he claims he’s innocent while Hazel Blears stays in her job despite having to pay thousands to the revenue to make up for the capital gains tax she avoided on the sale of a flat?
Interesting too that the Conservatives have abandoned their party political broadcast tonight and remade it with David Cameron straight to camera saying sorry and looking very sombre.
Of course local political parties will also want to have their say over local candidates. We’re very keen to track interesting developments. If you hear of, or are involved in any moves against sitting MPs regarding their expenses than please get in touch at news@channel4.com
Expenses: which MPs have paid back their claims?
http://tinyurl.com/or39hw | | | | gchq | | Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 12:45 am Post subject: Labour MP David Chaytor admits claiming thousands |
| MPs' expenses: Labour MP David Chaytor admits claiming thousands for non-existent mortgage
The Mail
16 May 2009
Apologetic: David Chaytor says he made
an 'unforgivable error' claiming £13,000 on
a mortgage that had already been paid off
A second Labour MP was last night facing a police fraud probe for claiming nearly £13,000 for a 'phantom' mortgage.
Backbencher David Chaytor continued to make claims to cover the interest on a home loan he had already repaid.
The case mirrors that of Labour former minister Elliot Morley, who was this week suspended from the party's parliamentary grouping and banned from its meetings.
Mr Chaytor, MP for Bury North, admitted wrongdoing after leaked expenses records showed that he was reimbursed £1,175 a month for almost a year.
In total, he was paid £12,925 by the Commons' Fees Office between September 2005 and August 2006.
Land Registry records show that the mortgage on the Westminster flat was paid off in January 2004.
Legal experts believe that, like Mr Morley - who claimed £16,000 of taxpayers' money for a non-existent mortgage - a prosecution could be brought under the Fraud Act 2006 or the Theft Act 1968.
A Downing Street spokesman said last night: 'This is a very serious matter and the Chief Whip, Nick Brown, will be discussing it urgently with the MP before further action is taken.'
Mr Chaytor, who is abroad on a taxpayer-funded trip to America with the Children, Schools and Families select committee, will almost certainly be suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Party sources said they expected he would be summoned back to Britain immediately.
Last night, Mr Chaytor apologised 'unreservedly'.
'In respect of mortgage interest payments, there has been an unforgivable error in my accounting procedures for which I apologise unreservedly,' he said in a statement to the Daily Telegraph.
'I will act immediately to ensure repayment is made to the fees office.'
The MP's prompt mea culpa marks a sharp change in MPs' responses to allegations of dodgy expenses claims since extraordinary details of lavish expenditure on the taxpayer first arose last week.
Initially, many maintained that they acted within the rules.
But as public anger grew, MPs agreed to repay vast sums even if they were legitimately paid out.
According to leaked documents obtained by the Daily Telegraph Mr Chaytor also has some of the most controversial arrangements of any MP.
Since 2004, he has allegedly claimed for five different properties, 'flipping' his designated second home between London, Yorkshire and Bury.
He apparently claimed for one home where his son was the named occupant on council tax bills.
His statement said: 'Changing and complex family circumstances have required me to live in different places during the last five years.
'During this time, I should have ensured that my mortgage had been switched to the flat in which I was temporarily living.
'Stupidly and inexplicably, and at a time of great personal and family stress, I failed to ensure that this was done.'
Labour's National Executive Committee will meet on Tuesday to consider Mr Morley's case and disciplinary action for all Labour MPs embroiled in the scandal. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
