Caroline Spelman cleared of intentional rules breach.

Caroline Spelman has been cleared of intentionally breaching commons expenses rules. However, the Commons standards and privileges committee said Caroline must repay £9,600.

In its report, the committee said Spelman: "Had little time in which to prepare for membership of the House. "Her limited familiarity with the Rules of the House at the time is understandable. "Mrs Spelman also faced a backlog of constituency casework which had accumulated following the death of her predecessor and this must have placed her under additional pressure at what was a frenzied time."

Caroline said:

"I fully accept the findings of this inquiry which I sought because I wanted the opportunity to clear my name. "I am glad the committee finds that the work done by Tina Haynes met a genuine need for an assistant in the constituency, that she was qualified to do the job and that the work was done. "However, as the committee notes, the arrangements had the unintended effect of misapplying some of my parliamentary allowances for non-parliamentary purposes, for which I am sorry."

"This is a finding which I take very seriously and I will of course immediately pay the money in question back. It took place more than a decade ago when I was a new MP. "But I apologise sincerely for it. I fully accept people have a right to expect the highest standards from people in public life."

Is this the end of this story? I remember posting that this was a storm in a teacup at the time.

More HERE

Caroline Spelman - A storm in a Teacup?

I've read some terrible rubbish over the last day or so about Caroline Spelman paying he live in nanny to work as her Constituency secretary during the day (Including some right leaning Blogs). For one thing this is very old news, for another, Tina Haynes (the nanny) did act as Caroline's Constituency secretary for the period in question. Spelman's Constituency phone number was her home number at the time and Tina dealt with all the calls coming into the house when Caroline was away. She did the filing and dealt with the office correspondence. Apparently she also provided Constituency meeting arrangements on Fridays.

The fact is that Caroline stopped this arrangement when the Whip told her that it could be open to misinterpretation. It is also a fact that Caroline had to hire someone else as her Constituency secretary to take over the nanny's office duties during the day. The Tax payer LOST NOTHING from the arrangement with the nanny. In fact her replacement probably cost us more when her expenses were taken into consideration. All this talk of Cameron asking Caroline to step down while this is investigated is going way over the top and only adds fuel to a barely smouldering fire.

There have been accusations that the nanny's statement may have been coached by CCHQ - well I say - too bloody right. Michael Crick contacted this woman for what seemed like a nice little chat about her former employer's family life as an MP. He was in fact digging for dirt and Tina may have not been so dismissive about her roll if she had been aware of this. I think it is entirely possible that Tina modestly played down her job. After all, Caroline was using her home as her constituency office at the time, and it is highly unlikely that the office received only "one or two phone calls a week". This is part of the statement issued by Tina Haynes.

"On the 6th June 2008 I received a phone call from Michael Crick from the BBC stating that he was doing a programme about Mrs Spelman and her family life with her being an MP.I answered the questions asked of which a few are listed below.

Did I do secretarial work? to which I answered Yes,

Was it political? to which I answered No (my understanding of this was that he was asking was it party political work)

Did I do Nannying / Childcare for her? to which I answered Yes.

For a period of time the constituency phone number was Mrs Spelman's personal home landline number, so any calls made to this number whilst Mrs Spelman was not present was answered by myself, and all messages taken were then passed directly onto Mrs Spelman. I believe my answers accurately reflect that for one year I had two roles in working for Mrs Spelman."

I also think it is entirely possible that the only person to come out of this looking less than honest is one Michael Crick.

Caroline Spelman - A fuss about nothing?

You can tell that it's been a quiet news week when the media go into a frenzy over a Tory MPs expenses from ten years ago. Caroline Spelman has been accused of paying her nanny, Tina Haynes, from her expenses for the period 1997-98. Sounds bad doesn't it? But, how does this sound: Caroline Spelman had a live in nanny at the time who was paid to carryout secretarial work for Caroline while the kids were at school. The nanny was paid six hours a day five days a week.

There was a question over how much secretarial work Tina actually did for her publicly funded wages. This came about after Tina told BBC's Newsnight that she only posted letters and "took the odd phone call" and passed on messages "once or twice a week". I think it is entirely possible that Tina modestly played down her roll. After all, Caroline was using her home as her constituency office at the time, and it is highly unlikely that the office received only one or two phone calls a week.

To clear the matter up, Tina issued a statement today:

"During the period of 1997 to 1998, I had two roles, one helping Mrs Spelman with childcare and another providing secretarial help to her as a MP. "My roles and responsibilities were general administration which entailed tasks such as posting of letters, answering phone calls at the home address, (and) faxing or posting documents to Mrs Spelman whilst she was in London. "This was performed during the hours that her children were at school. On Fridays any help with directions to constituency events was given."

Caroline has referred the matter to the parliamentary standards commissioner. I have a feeling that Caroline did not break the rules, but did put herself in a position where her actions could be questioned - innocent or not. I also feel that this has been a storm in a very old teacup