The Standards and Privileges Committee concludes

Whilst we acknowledge that there are mitigating circumstances, Ms Smith clearly breached the rules of the house by wrongly designating her main home from 2004 to 2009. We recommend that Ms Smith apologise to the House by means of a personal statement.

Guido is not sure that it should rest there.

Ms Smith accepts that she also breached the rules by failing to notify the house authorities for one year that she had changed the address of her designated main home. Ms Smith gained nothing from this lapse, and the public interest was not harmed. We therefore recommend no further action.

Absolutely untrue. If she had only been able to claim for the rent of her sisters spare room she would not have been able to refurbish her main family home at the taxpayers’ expense. She gained everything from the kitchen sink to bath plugs – which she would not have been able to do if she was just claiming for the rent on her sister’s place.

When her duplicity was first exposed in the media she also, let us not forget, claimed in interviews to spend most of her time in London. When her diary and police records were examined by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, this was found to be untrue.

She has not been asked by the Standards and Privileges Committee to repay a single penny.