28th January 2008: Mr Conway was suspended from the Commons for 10 days and ordered to return £13,161 of the money he paid his son. A Commons standards committee said there was no record of Freddie, a student, doing work at Westminster in return for £40,000 of taxpayers’ money. The committee report, which said Freddie was “all but invisible” at Westminster, concluded the arrangement was “at the least an improper use of parliamentary allowances” and “at worst, a serious diversion of public funds”.
21st March 2008: police say they cannot investigate disgraced MP Derek Conway, even though he was reprimanded by Commons authorities for paying his student son nearly £40,000 to be a researcher. Scotland Yard said a “lack of systems” for accounting for MPs’ expenses meant it was ruling out an investigation.
“Phew.”
3 responses so far ↓
Acorn // March 22, 2008 at 11:06 am
Regarding MPs’ first or second home expenses, do I take it that none of this money is clawed back by the state, when they sell these properties?
ranger1640 // March 22, 2008 at 10:31 pm
It is time we get the issue around MP’s Pay and expenses. It’s no surprise that Conway is getting away with this just like Tony and his cash for honours!
The case of the Winterton’s has gone a bit cold too!
Its time for David Cameron to get this sorted out.
The electorate are getting turned off with all these shenanigans and are regarding the goings on at Westminster as a clear case of them and us!
If the conservatives want to get elected at the next election we need fair play for the motorist, a clear and unambiguous tax system and a clear and unambiguous set of ruls for MP’s.
Can I suggest that redundant army or TA locations could be converted into an MP’s village this then can cut the run away gravy train of expenses that MP’s like to get onboard!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7226069.stm
Letters From A Tory // March 22, 2008 at 11:12 pm
It’s no surprise that the system has got this rotten, but it will take a concerted and substantial effort to solve the problems and close all the loopholes (of which there appears to be many). Cameron has talked the talk on MP expenses and will hopefully back this up soon.
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