Jacqui Smith escapes punishment over £116,000 second-home expenses
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...se-claims.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8301878.stm
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Quote:
Jacqui Smith faces an even tougher battle to keep her marginal seat in the next election after being let off with a slap on the wrist by Parliament's sleaze watchdog despite it finding she clearly broke the rules on MPs' expenses.
Labour's former Home Secretary grudgingly apologised in the Commons after John Lyon, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, delivered a scathing verdict on her £100,000-plus second-home claims. His devastating report - and the fact that Miss Smith's own police protection officers contradicted her version of events - appeared to leave her political career in ruins.
She decided to designate a room in her sister's house in London as her main home - allowing her to claim up to £24,000 a year in taxpayers' money towards the running of her family home in Redditch. Mr Lyon said the designation was 'contrary to the purpose as well as to the letter of the rule'. He said Miss Smith had been in breach of the guidelines on expenses from 2004 to 2009, a period in which she claimed at least £116,000 in total.
In what I have read and seen in the media, she will repay £400, leaving her with a hefty £115,600 left, despite fixing her second-home expenses - she now escapes prosecution or any form of punishment, despite from robbing the public purse blind. One rule for all of us, another rule for them.
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