Guido understands the Met are looking into the following paragraph from the conclusion of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards report:

 “Mr Laws was in breach of the rules of the House in claiming for repairs and maintenance work undertaken on the second London home in 2007-08, since these additional expenses were not necessarily incurred by him given that his rental claims were already significantly above that which could be justified by his share of living in the property in a sound condition, with the result that his claims for building work benefited someone close to him, namely his partner who owned the property and who lived in it with him, contrary to section 3.3.2 of the July 2006 Green Book.”

The question is whether the “expenses were not necessarily incurred” amounts to dishonesty, in which case they will launch a criminal investigation into possible offences of fraud and false accounting. It does not matter if he did not gain personally, it is only necessary to show another person gained, in this case his partner. Laws was only the tenant, yet he made claims for building work that were the responsibility of the landlord, his partner. Guido seems to remember that a deal was done so that the Met wouldn’t investigate if the Standards and Privileges Committee dished out a punishment. Could have just gone out the window?