Maria Miller Expenses Claim To Be Investigated By Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

Culture Sec Maria Miller To Be Investigated Over Expenses Claim

Culture secretary Maria Miller will be investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, for allegedly misusing £90,000 of expenses.

Miller is to have her expenses investigated by commissioner John Lyon, his office said on Thursday.

Labour MP John Mann complained to IPSA that Miller’s parents lived in a property designated as her second home whilst she was also claiming parliamentary allowances to cover the costs of the rent.

Maria Miller has been reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

He told The Huffington Post UK Miller should resign. "There is now no role whatsoever for Maria Miller either in government or specifically in dealing with everything to do with the press and Leveson.

"She should resign or the Prime Minister should reassign responsibility for dealing with Leveson”.

Mann alleged, after reporting Miller to the Commissioner, that the circumstances were “identical to those of Tony McNulty who allowed his parents to live in his second home rent free and the Committee on Standards and Privileges ruled that he had broken the rules.”

John Mann added: “It was a dreadful scandal in 2009 when the corrupt expenses claims were first exposed and it remains a scandal that some of our MP’s have still not put their houses in order and voluntary paid back monies they should not have claimed.

"When this failure occurs its only right that a complaint should go to the Commissioner for Standards. The public wants the best from us and it looks as if we still have a way to go before we achieve that”.

On Wednesday, The Daily Telegraph, which broke the expenses story, took the unusual and controversial step of publishing details of a conversation between one of its reporters and Joanna Hindley, an adviser to Maria Miller.

The paper alleged Hindley had attempted to warn the paper off writing about the expenses claims, by reminding it of the role the department played in developing a new system of press regulation.

"Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about," Hindley is said to have told the paper.

On Wednesday afternoon the newspaper accused Craig Oliver, the Downing Street communications director, of calling its editor Tony Gallagher to suggest he back off the story as “she [Maria Miller] is looking at Leveson at the moment".

The prime minister's spokesman said: "The Secretary of State had some concerns about the way that investigation was conducted. She set those out in a letter to the editor. Craig Oliver was simply reflecting those concerns."

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