Expenses scandal: Malik faces second probe as Commons inquiry begins

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 14:12

COMMUNITIES minister Shahid Malik faces another probe into his use of Commons allowances, it was revealed today.

Parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon has accepted a complaint about the Dewsbury MP's accommodation and office costs.

Mr Malik was cleared of breaching the ministerial code last week, after allegations that he was paying below market rates.

A spokeswoman for Mr Lyon said: "The commissioner has accepted a complaint into Mr Malik."

The minister stepped aside from the Government while Sir Philip Mawer, Gordon Brown's adviser on the ministerial code, examined his housing arrangements.

Sir Philip's report criticised the MP for being unable to produce receipts or a rental agreement to back his case.

But he concluded there had been no "preferential rent", paving the way for Mr Malik's return as Communities Minister.

The adviser later said there was no need to look at fresh allegations over Mr Malik's use of taxpayer-funded expenses to pay for office space within his constituency home.

However, the Standards Commissioner stepped in after receiving a complaint from pressure group the Sunlight Centre for Open Politics.

Meanwhile, the head of an inquiry into Commons expenses hit out at MPs today for lacking principles.

Sir Christopher Kelly said the system appeared to have been 'exploited for personal gain'.

Opening the Committee on Standards in Public Life's first evidence session, he insisted politicians needed to show qualities including selflessness, integrity and honesty.

"These values are timeless," he said. "If they had been followed more by more MPs over the past few years we would not be in the situation that we are."

Giving evidence to the committee, Commons leader Harriet Harman accepted it was "unsustainable" for MPs to keep employing close family members in their offices.

She insisted that often spouses and relatives worked harder than other people would because they "lived the job".

But Ms Harman went on: "I think it is almost impossible to convince the public that actually there is fair employment opportunity.

"I think my own view is that it is just too difficult to sustain public confidence."

The Cabinet minister was also challenged on why the Government had not acted to ensure that disgraced MPs will not receive a pay-off for stepping down early.

Ms Harman was asked why the ruling Commons Members Estimate Committee rejected proposals in 2008 that MPs who step down voluntarily should not get resettlement grants.

Panel member Lloyd Clarke said the Senior Salaries Review Body had made the suggestion because employees in the private sector did not get redundancy pay-offs when they decided to leave jobs.

Ms Harman replied: "I think it was because we did not want to create a perverse incentive for... I think what had happened was that an MP who wanted to resign or retire had gone and stood somewhere else in a place they were not going to win.

"We don't want a perverse incentive not to resign or retire."

Ms Harman said she had specifically asked the committee to look at the issue of resettlement grants – which can be up to a full year's salary, with the first 30,000 tax-free – because of the recent controversy.

Asked why changes to eligibility had not been included in interim reforms, she insisted: "We have asked for your recommendations on that."

She also insisted there would be no legal problem with denying the cash to people who had already said they were stepping down voluntarily.

"There is no contract of employment between the House (and the MP) in respect of any of the allowances."