Annex I6
Letter to Mr Keith Vaz MP from the Chairman
of the Committee on Standards and Privileges
Thank you for your letter of 7 December, in which
you asked me to place before the next meeting of the Committee
your request for further time in which to respond to the Commissioner's
draft report on the complaints against you.
The Commissioner told us at our last meeting, on
4 December, that she would be giving you until today (Monday 10
December) to respond, and that she would then submit her report
to us so that we could consider it at our next meeting, on Tuesday
18 December. The Committee was content with these arrangements.
I am afraid that by the time we meet to consider your request
for an extension we will already have received the Commissioner's
report.
I suggest, therefore, that you should include whatever
points you want to make in a memorandum and send it directly to
the Committee. If you could let the committee clerk have it by
Thursday, the Committee will receive it at the same time as we
see the Commissioner's report. If you felt that was too short
a deadline, anything you were to send in when the House reassembles
early in January would be in our hands before we begin detailed
consideration of the Commissioner's report.
The Committee is as keen as you are that your point
of view should be given a fair hearing, and I believe that what
I am proposing will achieve that.
10 December 2001
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