MPs' Expenses - The Saga Continues
Still no end in sight to the ongoing MPs' expenses scandal - the latest 'honourable' member to come unstuck is Harry Cohen - Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead.
Yesterday's newspapers reported how the MP has been ordered to forfeit a £65,000 re-settlement grant - after a particularly serious breach of parliamentary rules.
Somehow or other - but not deliberately, of course - this otherwise intelligent MP managed to claim £70,000 in housing expenses - for a property he was not actually living in at the time.
In fact he was renting it out - and by all accounts seems to have walked away with a tidy profit - even after giving up his £65,000 (normally paid to MPs on leaving the House of Commons).
But he didn't resign in disgrace - he didn't have the party whip withdrawn - in fact he's still there drawing a handsome salary all the way to the general election.
Here's a summary of the report in the Times newspaper - the full article can be read online at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
Labour MP to forfeit £65,000
"The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee ruled that he designated a house in Colchester, Essex, as his main home even though he was not living there for long periods and rented it out.
“Mr Cohen’s breach was particularly serious and it involved a large sum of public money,” the committee said.
“Withholding of the resettlement grant is a severe sanction, which will effectively recover from Mr Cohen a similarly large sum of public money.”
The committee said that Mr Cohen should also make a public apology for his conduct on the floor of the Commons.
An investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, found that Mr Cohen had consistently designated the house in Colchester as his main home since he bought it in 1998.
It enabled him to claim the second homes allowance on a succession of properties in his Leyton and Wanstead constituency in East London.
However, from 2004 to 2008, Mr Cohen and his wife spent most of their time living in the constituency, while periodically letting out the Colchester house to tenants on six-month leases.
During that period he claimed and received more than £70,000 in second homes allowances.
The committee pointed out that an outer London MP with just one home would have been entitled to claim just £9,000 in the London supplement over the same period.
As a result, it said that Mr Cohen should now forfeit the £65,000 resettlement grant that he was due to receive when he stands down as an MP at the forthcoming general election.
While it acknowledged that the couple had always intended to return to the Colchester house, where they plan to retire, it said it should have been clear by April 2004 that that was not going to happen in the short term.
“Mr Cohen’s constituency home was his main home — and for long periods his only home — throughout the four and a half years when he was making little use of the house in Colchester,” it said."
Yesterday's newspapers reported how the MP has been ordered to forfeit a £65,000 re-settlement grant - after a particularly serious breach of parliamentary rules.
Somehow or other - but not deliberately, of course - this otherwise intelligent MP managed to claim £70,000 in housing expenses - for a property he was not actually living in at the time.
In fact he was renting it out - and by all accounts seems to have walked away with a tidy profit - even after giving up his £65,000 (normally paid to MPs on leaving the House of Commons).
But he didn't resign in disgrace - he didn't have the party whip withdrawn - in fact he's still there drawing a handsome salary all the way to the general election.
Here's a summary of the report in the Times newspaper - the full article can be read online at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
Labour MP to forfeit £65,000
"The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee ruled that he designated a house in Colchester, Essex, as his main home even though he was not living there for long periods and rented it out.
“Mr Cohen’s breach was particularly serious and it involved a large sum of public money,” the committee said.
“Withholding of the resettlement grant is a severe sanction, which will effectively recover from Mr Cohen a similarly large sum of public money.”
The committee said that Mr Cohen should also make a public apology for his conduct on the floor of the Commons.
An investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, found that Mr Cohen had consistently designated the house in Colchester as his main home since he bought it in 1998.
It enabled him to claim the second homes allowance on a succession of properties in his Leyton and Wanstead constituency in East London.
However, from 2004 to 2008, Mr Cohen and his wife spent most of their time living in the constituency, while periodically letting out the Colchester house to tenants on six-month leases.
During that period he claimed and received more than £70,000 in second homes allowances.
The committee pointed out that an outer London MP with just one home would have been entitled to claim just £9,000 in the London supplement over the same period.
As a result, it said that Mr Cohen should now forfeit the £65,000 resettlement grant that he was due to receive when he stands down as an MP at the forthcoming general election.
While it acknowledged that the couple had always intended to return to the Colchester house, where they plan to retire, it said it should have been clear by April 2004 that that was not going to happen in the short term.
“Mr Cohen’s constituency home was his main home — and for long periods his only home — throughout the four and a half years when he was making little use of the house in Colchester,” it said."
