73. Letter to Ms Nadine Dorries MP
from the Commissioner, 29 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 27 July responding to
mine of 13 and 22 July about this complaint.
I was grateful to receive this response. I have
noted what you say about the pattern of your overnight stays,
and that you are not prepared to give me any absolute figure in
terms of where you spent your nights as you cannot be 100% certain
that it would be truthful to do so. I should perhaps make clear
that I did not ask you for an absolute figure. Since I first wrote
to you on 7 July 2009 I have asked you on a number of occasions
for an estimate—and no more than an estimate—of the
number of nights you spent in your main home. I have asked you
for such an estimate because the number of nights spent in the
property was at the time the principal qualifying test for the
definition of a main home. That definition says that the Member's
main home is normally where they spend more nights than any other.
I will record the estimates for your overnight stays which you
gave me in your letter of 27 July 2009, in your e-mails of 4 August
and 8 October 2009 and in your letter of 25 January 2010. I will
also note, however, that you cannot give me an absolute figure
and would prefer me to rely on how you divide your time and on
the pattern of overnight stays, which you have given me. I assume
that was the pattern which you gave me in your letter of 15 June
2010. Unless you tell me otherwise I will reflect that most recent
pattern in my report, but note also that you gave me an earlier
version in your letter of 1 March 2010. I will need to assume
also that that pattern has remained largely unchanged throughout
the period in question.
I have noted your comments about the evidence of
one of the witnesses in your constituency and that your blog is
now back on line.
Subject to any further comments you might wish to
make about your overnight stays, I am now at the end of this inquiry.
As I said in my letter of 22 July, I will now therefore prepare
the factual sections of my memorandum to the Committee on Standards
and Privileges. I will show you these so that you can comment
if necessary on their factual accuracy. I will then prepare my
conclusions and complete my work on the memorandum before submitting
it to the Committee. I will let you and the complainant know when
the full memorandum is submitted.
I will be back in touch, therefore, when I have completed
the factual sections of my memorandum.
29 July 2010
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