At last! It seems that the police have decided to pass their files on 3 noble Lords and 3 honourable members to the Crown Prosecution Service, the English equivalent of the Procurator Fiscal. It is expected that a decision on whether to prosecute or not will be made by England’s top prosecutor, Keir Starmer in January, well in advance of the General Election.
The three peers are: Lord Clark of Hampstead, a former Labour Party chairman, who apparently has admitted a “terrible mistake” by claiming overnight expenses when he was in fact going home, or staying with friends (How can you make a mistake over that; didn’t he know where he was staying?); Lady Uddin, who lived in London but claimed that her main home was an unfurnished flat in Maidstone, thus netting over £100,000; and Lord Hanningfield, who also managed to claim £100,000 for overnight stays, when in fact he went home to Essex in a chauffeur driven car provided by the taxpayer, in his role as chairman of Essex County Council. How confused must he have been after a hard day’s work in the bar, sorry, I mean the Lords?
The honourable members are: Elliot Morley, who claimed for a mortgage he didn’t have; David Chaytor, who did the same; and our own Jim Devine, of dubious shelves and even more dubious rewiring fame.
Police appear to have ruled out taking any action over flipping of houses, or avoidance of Capital Gains Tax, which seems incredibly generous of them, given that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was lost. It seems, however, that the Inland Revenue is looking into 27 (only 27?) claims for items not considered to be vital in the carrying out of parliamentary duties, with a view to charging 40% tax on their value. One can only imagine that this must include the duck house and the moat cleaning, not to mention the bath plug. I’m sure small businessmen will be delighted at this new, much more generous regime over small matters of tax irregularities.
It is good to hear that some investigations are being carried out, but bad to hear that there are so few. It was also disappointing to hear that no legislation would be introduced to deal with MPs’ expenses in the parliamentary year to come. I would have thought that, given the shortness of legislative time, the importance to the reputation, both here and abroad, of the so-called mother of parliaments, and the public’s obvious fury, Brown might have thought it prudent to include this in yesterday’s speech. New MPs in a new parliament in June of 2010 must start with a clean slate and a new system that we can have some faith in. What do you think are the chances of that?
The three peers are: Lord Clark of Hampstead, a former Labour Party chairman, who apparently has admitted a “terrible mistake” by claiming overnight expenses when he was in fact going home, or staying with friends (How can you make a mistake over that; didn’t he know where he was staying?); Lady Uddin, who lived in London but claimed that her main home was an unfurnished flat in Maidstone, thus netting over £100,000; and Lord Hanningfield, who also managed to claim £100,000 for overnight stays, when in fact he went home to Essex in a chauffeur driven car provided by the taxpayer, in his role as chairman of Essex County Council. How confused must he have been after a hard day’s work in the bar, sorry, I mean the Lords?
The honourable members are: Elliot Morley, who claimed for a mortgage he didn’t have; David Chaytor, who did the same; and our own Jim Devine, of dubious shelves and even more dubious rewiring fame.
Police appear to have ruled out taking any action over flipping of houses, or avoidance of Capital Gains Tax, which seems incredibly generous of them, given that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was lost. It seems, however, that the Inland Revenue is looking into 27 (only 27?) claims for items not considered to be vital in the carrying out of parliamentary duties, with a view to charging 40% tax on their value. One can only imagine that this must include the duck house and the moat cleaning, not to mention the bath plug. I’m sure small businessmen will be delighted at this new, much more generous regime over small matters of tax irregularities.
It is good to hear that some investigations are being carried out, but bad to hear that there are so few. It was also disappointing to hear that no legislation would be introduced to deal with MPs’ expenses in the parliamentary year to come. I would have thought that, given the shortness of legislative time, the importance to the reputation, both here and abroad, of the so-called mother of parliaments, and the public’s obvious fury, Brown might have thought it prudent to include this in yesterday’s speech. New MPs in a new parliament in June of 2010 must start with a clean slate and a new system that we can have some faith in. What do you think are the chances of that?
Update: According to the BBC's World at One, Christopher Kelly has put pressure on the Prime Minister to ensure that legislation is introduced to enact the recommendations in his report. In one of their swiftest U-turns yet, Downing Street seems to have agreed that this may well be done. I wonder!
