15. Letter to Ms Alison Seabeck MP
from the Commissioner, 4 January 2011
Thank you for your letter of 21 December responding
to mine of 15 December about this complaint.
You have raised a number of matters about the procedure
for declaring your interests in the future. I have passed your
letter to the Registrar of Members' Financial Interests so that
she can consider what advice to give you on these matters. In
the meantime, I do need to resolve this complaint against you.
The question I have to resolve is whether you should have declared
your indirect interest during the debate on the Fire Safety (Protection
of Tenants) Bill on 19 November, when you intervened by referring
to the Fire Protection Association. The Registrar's view is that
you should have declared this interest, and that it would have
been preferable if you had done so earlier in the debate.
I hope I am right in interpreting your letter as
accepting this advice. If that were the case, then I take it that
you accept the basis of the complaint, namely that you were in
breach of the rules in relation to the declaration of interests
in not declaring your indirect interest during this debate. You
have argued that the decision about declaring an indirect interest
is a matter of judgement, and that you had indeed considered the
general question of the declaration of your partner's interests,
including when you were appointed Shadow Housing spokesman in
October 2010. I think it would be helpful, however, if I could
be clear whether you considered specifically whether to declare
your indirect interest in the Fire Protection Association for
the debate on the Fire Safety (Protection of Tenants) Bill on
19 November—in which case any error was not inadvertent
but, in your view, was an error of judgement—or whether
you did not specifically consider this matter at that time.
Finally, I note that your summary of your conversation
with the Registrar following her recollection of the conversation
which she sent me on 15 December,[114]
is different from your initial recollection which you sent me
on 1 December, where you suggested that her advice was that there
was no need to direct Members to your partner's interests when
you spoke in the House.[115]
I would be very grateful, therefore, if you could
confirm that you accept the Registrar's advice on the declaration
of your indirect interests; whether, as a consequence, you accept
that you were in breach of the rules in relation to declaration
when you made no declaration of your partner's interests in the
Fire Protection Association during the debate on the Fire Safety
(Protection of Tenants) Bill on 19 November; and if you could
confirm whether or not you considered making such a declaration
at the time.
I have been most grateful for your prompt responses
to this matter. If you could let me have a reply in the next week,
that would be most helpful in bringing this to a conclusion.
4 January 2011
114 WE 11 Back
115
WE 6 Back
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