CONSERVATIVE chairman Caroline Spelman was last night facing calls to pay back money from the public purse she gave to a nanny she says was acting as her constituency secretary.
Spelman insists she did nothing wrong and is seeking a meeting with parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon tomorrow to allow him to look into the case. She was defended by shadow chancellor George Osborne as "someone of enormous integrity a
nd honesty".
But Bassetlaw MP John Mann accused the Conservatives of a "cover-up" and said that Spelman should today make public documentation to prove that Tina Haines was employed to carry out administrative and secretarial duties.
He said any MP's secretary would leave a "paper trail" of computer files and initials on documents handled, and Spelman's home telephone number would be listed in local authority directories if she was using it as her constituency office, as she says.
Spelman yesterday confirmed that she paid Haines from her parliamentary staffing allowance for a period of months after she was first elected to the Commons in 1997. She said the nanny answered phone calls and opened and sorted letters during school hours, and then provided childcare later in the day.
She ended the arrangement after then chief whip James Arbuthnot told her it could give rise to "misinterpretations". But she insists she did not breach the rules, which say the allowance must be used to pay staff who assist with MPs' parliamentary work and not their private lives.
"At the time, I thought it was entirely within the rules – and that is still my belief," she said.
Mann said: "The use of the money was clearly inappropriate. It may well have been inadvertent, but she should put her hands up and pay the money back, and that would be the end of the matter as far as I'm concerned.
"I think the cover-up is much worse – and a much bigger problem for the Conservatives – than the original offence.
"She now needs to provide all the letters marked with the secretary's initials. If she was to be contacted via her constituency secretary, then it must be listed in the local authority guide, so let her produce that."
The question mark over Spelman's expenses comes in the wake of the resignation of the Tory leader in the European Parliament, Giles Chichester, who transferred more than £400,000 of staff expenses into a private family company.
The fact that Spelman's own expenses are now being subjected to public scrutiny is particularly embarrassing for Conservative leader David Cameron, because it was the party chairman herself who issued a deadline to Chichester to justify his actions.
Osborne said: "Spelman is someone of enormous integrity and honesty, so I think her statement speaks for itself and her character speaks for itself."
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