Select Committee on Standards and Privileges Third Report


Annex 115

Letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards from Councillor Mustafa Kamal

  Thank you for your letter of 28 June 2000. As suggested by you I paid a visit to my Bank Manager yesterday afternoon. He is happy to comply with your request but says that the cost could be as high as £400 and could take several days. If you still want me to go ahead then please do let me know and I shall instruct him accordingly. However, before you make up your mind I would like to go through the events leading up to issuing a direct debit instruction to my Bank for £8.00 per month to help Keith Vaz's office at 144/146 Uppingham Road, Leicester.

  Not very long after the 1987 local elections Keith Vaz MP demanded that all elected members from Leicester East (a Constituency he represents in the House of Commons) should contribute £2.00 per week to carry out work to make sure Leicester East stays under Labour control. Now if the implication from his response to you is that money collected was to be used to run Leicester East Constituency Labour Party then obviously he does not understand how the constituencies raise funds to meet their expenditures. They are partly funded by the centre and the rest through the activities of the Constituency organised by its executive. Prior to the arrival of Keith Vaz the Constituency actually had a fund raising officer. Even if one is inclined to believe Mr Vaz, it still amounts to the same thing, Leicester East Constituency Labour Party and Keith Vaz's office are one and the same. It is a fact that for a very long time the constituency office was operated from 146 Uppingham Road, a property owned by Mr Vaz. I personally collected material for distribution for local and National elections from those premises. I would like to reiterate that to raise funds to run a constituency has never been the responsibility of a MP, and when Mr Vaz asked for a financial contribution I thought in all honesty that I was doing this to assist his office, and in doing so helping Labour.

6 July 2000


 
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