20. Letter to Ms Alison Seabeck MP
from the Commissioner, 13 January 2011
Thank you for your letter of 11 January responding
to mine of 4 January about this complaint.
I take it from your response that you do not accept
the Registrar's advice and you do not, therefore, accept that
you were in breach of the rules in relation to the declaration
of interests in not declaring your indirect interest in the Fire
Protection Association during the debate on the Fire Safety (Protection
of Tenants) Bill on 19 November last.
There was one outstanding point, however, which I
do not think you have addressed in your letter. It is whether
you specifically considered whether you should have declared your
indirect interest in the Fire Protection Association during the
debate on 19 November. As I said in my letter of 4 January, I
do need to know whether you specifically considered that matter
in advance of the debate, and judged that a declaration was not
necessary, or whether you did not specifically consider the matter
at that time. If you did not so consider it, it would be helpful
to know why you did not do so.
Meanwhile, I am now copying our correspondence to
the Registrar of Members' Financial Interests for any further
comments she may wish to make, in particular on the suggestion
in your letter of 11 January that your indirect interest in the
Fire Protection Association in respect of the Fire Safety Bill
was no greater than any such interest in the National House-Building
Council Foundation and the Construction Industry Council.
It would be very helpful if you could let me have
a response to the outstanding point in this letter within the
next week. I will also be back in touch once I hear from the Registrar.
I should say that I am minded to submit a memorandum
to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on this matter. You
should draw no inferences from that. Once I have concluded my
inquiry, I will prepare the draft factual sections of my memorandum,
which I would show to you so that you can comment if necessary
on their factual accuracy. I would then add my conclusions and
submit the full memorandum to the Committee. I would let you and
the complainant know when I do so. The Clerk of the Committee
would send you a copy of the full memorandum so that you can respond
to it before the Committee comes to consider the matter.
Thank you for your help with this.
13 January 2011
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