Cabinet minister Michael Gove is under investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog. The probe, initiated yesterday, concerns Gove’s financial interests as Housing Secretary. Andrew Bridgen has also been placed under investigation. The exact reasons for both are still unknown…
Tory MP Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservatives, was placed under investigation by the Commons Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg on the 14th December. This happens when there are claims an MP brought “significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its members generally“. There are no more details currently…
Marcus Fysh has apologised to the Commons Commissioner for Standards for failing to complete the income and expenditure statements for the APPG for education. Fysh also failed to publish mandatory information on the APPG’s website. Sounds fishy…
The matter has not been referred to the Standards Committee, who have bigger fish to fry, after Marcus accepted the decision, apologised and agreed to meet the registrar of interests to ensure all requisite information for the APPG was provided. The Standards Commissioner said:
“My investigation found that Mr Fysh had breached the Rules for APPGs by failing to provide income and expenditure statements for the years 2019 and 2020; and failing to include mandatory information on the Group’s website. I consider these breaches to be inadvertent and that they arose from an inattention to the Rules for 15 APPGs.”
Fysh’s off the hook.
Co-conspirators can read the Commissioner for Standards’s full report below:
The Standards Commissioner has concluded that Henry Smith broke Commons rules by sending out a newsletter using parliamentary stationery. The issue will not be taken further after Henry accepted the decision, apologised and reimbursed the £1,763 costs. In a letter to the Commissioner, Smith said:
“I can confirm that I accept your opinion that an inadvertent breach of the rules took place for which I apologise unreservedly. To ensure no such breach occurs in the future, I have spoken with my staff about this case and reiterated the rules that when responding to constituents they must draft correspondence on an individual basis relating to their enquiry subject matter only and not by way of a more general update… I personally accept your ruling and of course will re-imburse the House of Commons £1,762.61 for the 2,471 second class postage franked envelopes used.”
Guido’s glad Henry seems keen to stamp out this behaviour post-haste…
Matt Hancock has been told he must apologise to MPs for a “minor breach” of the Commons Code of Conduct, with sleaze commissioner Daniel Greenberg ruling Hancock had broken Commons rules by attempting to “lobby” Greenberg over another potential breach of the Code. Now he’s been told to ‘fess up, having previously claimed it was a “misunderstanding”…
Today Greenberg said Hancock had
“sought to influence his consideration of whether a breach of the Code”, with the standards committee adding it “agrees with the Commissioner that Mr Hancock breached paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct for Members, which concerns lobbying the Commissioner, when sending an unsolicited letter to the Commissioner on March 28”.
More of a (Han)cock up than anything else…
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has today concluded that Rachel Maclean broke rule 8 of the Code of Conduct for Members. The Housing Minister’s “minor” rule breach arose when she used her parliamentary email address to send 2,429 party political emails to constituents on the day of the local elections. Rachel Maclean accepted the Standards Commissioner’s decision, and outlined how she would prevent a further such breach:
“By sending an email to my constituents on my mailing list using my parliamentary email address on 4 May 2023, I acted in breach of rule 8 of the Code of Conduct. I have taken several steps to prevent the recurrence of the breach, including:
- Ensuring all of my team members undertake additional training so they are more familiar with how the mailing list system works.
- Updating the email address my newsletter is sent from, so it no longer comes from my Parliamentary email.
- I have put in place additional audit procedures within my office team to ensure that mistakes of this nature do not occur again.”
Case closed.
Co-conspirators can read the full report, including the offending email, below:
