14. Letter to Rt Hon Andrew Mackay
from the Commissioner, 26 January 2010
Thank you for your letter of 21 January responding
to the letter which I sent you on 5 November, about this complaint
in respect of the identification of your main home for the purposes
of your claims against the Additional Costs Allowance.
I was grateful to receive this response. It would
be very helpful if you could help me on the following points which
arise from this information:
1. Do you have any documentary or other evidence
to substantiate the estimates you have made of the number of nights
you spent in various locations in 2009?
2. Could you give me a little more detail about how
you fitted your parliamentary duties into your family life? It
has been suggested from press reports that your son is at school
in London. It would be helpful to know: whether you have dependent
children who live with you; how that operates in terms of how
you allocate your time between your two homes; and whether, in
the light of your professional responsibilities, your living arrangements
are significantly different from those of your wife. In particular,
it would be helpful if you could explain how your main home is
in Bromsgrove while your wife's appears to be in London. I appreciate
that these are personal questions and I would not ask them unless
I considered it necessary for me to resolve satisfactorily this
inquiry.
3. Could you let me know the dates of the contacts
you had with the then Head of the Fees Office? You report that
your arrangement was put on file in the Fees Office. It would
be helpful if you had any documents relating to the advice you
sought from the then Head of the Fees Office and to the filed
document to which you refer.
4. Could you clarify my understanding of your answer
to point 5, where you say that you did not inform the Fees Office
that you were sharing a property with another Member, who was
your wife? I am finding it difficult to reconcile that with the
implication in point 1 of your initial comments, where you report
that you told the then Head of the Fees Office that you jointly
owned your two properties.
5. Could you let me know, as requested in my letter
of 5 November, whether you claimed from your ACA for the full
mortgage interest on your second home in London? If you did not,
what proportion of that interest was represented by your claims?
If you could let me have a response to this within
the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. If there is any
difficulty about this, do let me know. Subject to your response,
I would propose to consult the Department of Resources. I would
then be back in touch to show you their advice, and it may be
that we should meet for an interview at that point so that I can
resolve this matter.
26 January 2010
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