Sorry is not good enough - House of Commons Committee should have ordered Jacqui Smith to repay expenses

The decision by local Labour MP, Alan Whitehead not to require Jacqui Smith to repay falsely claimed parliamentary expenses was quite wrong.

Mr Whitehead serves on the House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges and is one of 5 Labour MPs who asked merely for an apology from Ms Smith, refusing to call for her to repay up to £116,000 of expenses wrongly claimed by her between 2004 -2009. The committee’s decision followed an investigation by John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, who was scathing of the former Home Secretary’s behaviour.

Ms Smith claimed that her main home was a house in Peckham, a property owned by her sister where she used a room when staying in London. This allowed her to claim expenses and allowances on a ‘second home’, the four bedroom family home in the West Midlands.

Mr Whitehead was quite wrong to let his colleague off the hook. Jacqui Smith has been proved to have acted wrongly. She has been misleading about which house was really her main home and where she spent most of her time and Police evidence directly conflicted with her own account.

Any jury in the land would have said pay back the money. Having a bunch of MPs of the same party make the decision is like picking a prisoner’s cell mates and asking them to act as his jury.

It’s a pretty clear cut case to me. I think the committee should have ordered to her to pay back any expenses that were wrongly claimed.

The Importance of Public Service and Thoughts on MPs Expenses

I recently did a radio show and phone in for Awaaz FM along with Councillor Royston Smith about the importance of public service. The interview came ahead of the forthcoming European Elections on 4th June. I talked about the importance of voting how people can get involved in politics and their community. I also talked about why I first stood to be a councillor and why I am standing for Parliament.

This was all before the row that has blown up over MPs expenses. It all very depressing for someone like me who aspires to represent his local area in Parliament and believes in public service.

Expenses should be just that and should not be an excuse for some MPs to live off the state.

Being an MP is different to most jobs but it is beyond me why they think it is ok to claim all their food and things like tables and chairs.

In Southampton both our MPs, Alan Whitehead and John Denham, make use of their parliamentary communications allowances to pay for their leaflets to be printed and distributed.

As a candidate for Parliament my local political party pays for my leaflets. Why should the taxpayer pay for Alan and John’s? The communications allowance is £10,000 a year or £50,000 in a Parliament. That’s a lot of leaflets paid for by the taxpayer!

I have pledged that if elected to Parliament I will not putting my leaflets on expenses and I am backing David Cameron who has pledged to scrap the allowance if he becomes the next Prime Minister.

I challenge our Southampton MPs to do the same and in fact they should stop claiming this money now. Saying it is within the rules is not an excuse. It is not right and they should stop it.

Alan Whitehead has a long track record for arguing that political parties should receive more money from the taxpayer. My view is the opposite!

I should say that to his credit my opponent at the next General Election, Alan Whitehead has put a list of his expenses on his website. John Denham who represents the Southampton Itchen constituency has as yet failed to do so.