Mr Denis MacShane - Standards and Privileges Committee Contents


Written evidence received by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

1.  Letter to the Commissioner from Mr Michael Barnbrook, 29 June 2009

I wish to register a formal complaint against Mr Denis MacShane, MP.

  

The complaint relates to an article in the Mail on Sunday, dated 28th June, 2009, headed "Denis MacShane claims for 8 laptops in 3 years", a copy of which I enclose.[254]

  

In the article it states that Mr MacShane used his office expenses to claim more than £5,900 for 8 machines between March 2005 and January last year.

  

The computers, which cost between £498 and £1276 each, are in addition to technical equipment provided to MPs by Parliamentary authorities.

  

The Mail on Sunday claims that four laptops were claimed in 2007-08—the last year for which records are available—including what appears to be a duplicate claim in successive months for a computer of the same value, £498.

  

The Mail on Sunday also claims that Mr MacShane claimed more than £8,000 for translation services.

  

Apparently, he submitted more than a dozen invoices to the Commons fees office bearing the heading of the European Policy Institute. Each bill was justified by one line—"research and translation" —followed by a demand for fees ranging between £550 and £950.

  

The European Policy Institute, which according to the Mail on Sunday has a ghost presence on the Internet, is controlled by Mr MacShane's brother,[name].

  

Finally, Mr MacShane has claimed expenses of nearly £20,000 a year for seven years in order to run his official constituency office from a shabby looking garage at his home address.

  

If the allegations made in the Mail on Sunday are true, Mr MacShane appears to be in breach of parliamentary rules.

  

I am requesting that you use your powers under Standing Order 149 to demand from Mr MacShane all telephone, broadband and other records, in order to satisfy the taxpayer that the £20,000 a year to run his constituency office is properly accounted for.

  

I am also requesting that you use your powers under Standing Order 149 to obtain evidence of documents that have been translated and research undertaken for Mr MacShane by the European Policy Institute in order to satisfy the taxpayer that the charges were justified.

  

The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament clearly states that holders of public office should take decisions solely in the terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their families and their friends.

  

The Code also states that no improper use shall be made of any payment or allowance made to Ministers for public purposes and the administrative rules which apply to such payments and allowances must be strictly observed.

  

I have not submitted any evidence with my complaint as it is already in the public domain and I am not aware that Mr MacShane is denying any of the allegations made against him by the Mail on Sunday.

  

It goes without saying that, if during the course of any investigation, you become aware of possible criminal wrongdoing by Mr MacShane, you pass the matter to the Metropolitan Police for investigation, in accordance with the Eighth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, 2007-08.[255]

  

Thank you for your attention to this matter.[256]

  

29 June 2009

2.  Enclosure to Mr Michael Barnbrook's letter of 29 June 2009: Article from Mail on Sunday, 28 June 2009

Labour MP Denis MacShane claims expenses for eight laptops... in just three years

  

Labour MP Denis MacShane is facing further questions over his expenses after it was revealed that he claimed for eight laptop computers in just three years.

  

According to Commons files, the controversial former Europe Minister used his office expenses to claim more than £5,900 for the machines between March 2005 and January last year.

  

The computers, which cost between £498 and £1,276 each, are in addition to technical equipment provided to MPs by Parliamentary authorities.

  

Mysteriously, a recent visitor to MacShane's Rotherham constituency office, said he could see only one computer, a desktop model, in the study. Four laptops were claimed in 2007-08—the last year for which records are available—including what appears to be a duplicate claim in successive months for a computer of the same value, £498.95.

  

During the three-year period, Mr MacShane also claimed for a £212 Palm Pilot and three digital cameras worth up to £300 each. Five of the laptops were claimed for in November, December or January, and two of the receipts come from a Dixons tax-free airport store.

  

Last night Mr MacShane, who last week faced questions over more than £8,000 charged to the taxpayer for "translation services" carried out by a think-tank run by his [...] brother, failed to respond to repeated requests from The Mail on Sunday for a reaction.

  

But in a statement released to his local paper he claimed that the nature of his duties and the march of technological change necessitated the purchases.

  

"I did not come into politics to manage budgets, supplies, staffing etc, and I am the first to acknowledge this has not had the important and detailed attention which with hindsight I now realise I should have provided," he said.

  

"I spend a lot of time travelling and am on the road a lot, so like others in similar roles, computers, mobile phones and BlackBerrys are an absolute necessity and are in constant use seven days a week.

  

"In both my offices I employ permanent and part-time staff. Since 1994, I have always had one full-time constituency assistant in Rotherham as well as other part-time employees.

  

"I also have interns and researchers in my offices, and most of the equipment purchased has been for their use and to ensure I have fully functioning offices.

  

"Camera, computer and phone technology is ever-changing and I have sought to use the annual office costs allowance to maximise the technological opportunities for me and my staff to deal with a very demanding workload."

  

Last week, this newspaper revealed how Mr MacShane submitted more than a dozen invoices to the Commons bearing the heading of the European Policy Institute. Each bill was justified by one line—"research and translation"—followed by a demand for fees ranging between £550 and £950.

  

The EPI, which has a ghost presence on the internet, is controlled by his brother,[name].

  

We also revealed last month how Mr MacShane claimed nearly £20,000 a year in expenses for an office based in the garage of his South Yorkshire home.

  

The claim, totalling £125,000 over the past seven years, covered the costs of running his official constituency base from the shabby-looking garage at his semi-detached home in Rotherham.

  

28 June 2009

3.  Letter to Mr Michael Barnbrook from the Commissioner, 2 July 2009

Thank you for your letter of 29 June asking to register a formal complaint against Mr Denis MacShane MP.[257]

  

In your letter you say that you have not submitted evidence in relation to your complaint. As you know, however, I am required to consider whether the complainant has provided me with sufficient evidence to justify at least a preliminary inquiry into whether the Member has breached the rules. To meet that requirement, you do need to submit the evidence which you consider supports your complaint.

  

If, therefore, you would like me to consider instituting an inquiry into your complaint, could you let me have the evidence on which you would like to rely and an explanation of how you believe the Member has breached the rules of the House?

  

2 July 2009

4.  Letter to the Commissioner from Mr Michael Barnbrook, 7 July 2009

With reference to your letter dated 2 July asking me to supply evidence to substantiate my complaint against Denis MacShane MP, that he has breached the rules of the House.[258]

  

The evidence is contained on the Parliament web site under 'allowances by Members' on the following pages.

  

Computers  

  

2004-05      

  

Page 146    14/03/05    Notebook Travel Computer  £1050

  

2005-06      

  

Page 111    02/11/05    Computer      £834.23

  

Page 68    28/12/05    Portable Computer    £554.96

  

Page 28    13/02/06    Computer      £563.97

  

2006-07      

  

Page 67    07/12/06    Computer      £1276.59

  

2007-08      

  

Page 103    05/07/07    Laptop Computer      £611.12

  

Page 139    24/09/07    Laptop Computer      £578.99

  

Page 57    11/01/08    Laptop Computer      £498.95

  

Page 47    17/01/08    Notebook Computer    £498.95

  

  

  

Consultancy and Translation Services

  

2004-05      

  

Page 262    28/03/05    European Policy Institute    £550

  

Page 227    22/01/05    European Policy Institute    £850

  

Page 167    19/12/04    European Policy Institute    £650

  

Page 145    10/03/05    European Policy Institute    £850

  

Page 65    01/04/05    European Policy Institute    £750

  

Page 32    11/07/05    European Policy Institute    £750

  

2005-06      

  

Page 217    05/08/05    European Policy Institute    £500

  

Page 132    12/10/05    European Policy Institute    £450

  

Page 90    09/12/05    European Policy Institute    £550

  

Page 43    30/01/06    European Policy Institute    £550

  

2006-07      

  

Page 178    13/06/06    European Policy Institute    £750

  

Page 126    15/09/06    European Policy Institute    £750

  

Page 114    19/10/06    European Policy Institute    £950

  

Page 110    08/11/06    European Policy Institute    £550

  

Page 82    29/11/06    European Policy Institute    £850

  

Page 57    19/01/07    European Policy Institute    £550

  

2007-08      

  

Page 108    30/10/07    European Policy Institute    £850

  

Page 74    29/11/07    European Policy Institute    £550

  

Page 69    04/01/08    European Policy Institute    £650

  

I have already fully explained how I consider Mr MacShane to have breached the rules of the House in my letter to you dated 29th June, 2009.[259]

  

I would remind you of your powers under Standing Order 149, which gives you the authority to demand from any Member documentation to assist you in any investigation that you instigate.

  

By using Standing Order 149, you will be able to satisfy yourself whether the nineteen claims to the European Policy Institute for £12,900 and Mr MacShane's use of his garage as a constituency office, were justified.

  

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

  

7 July 2009

5.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 15 July 2009

I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received from Mr Michael Barnbrook about the arrangements for your parliamentary office.

  

I attach a copy of the complainant's letters to me of 29 June and 7 July.[260] In essence, the complaint is that the costs you claimed against the Incidental Expenses Provision for your constituency office and certain office services and equipment were not wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred on your parliamentary duties, contrary to the rules of the House. I have not accepted Mr Barnbrook's complaint about the nature of your constituency office, as he has not submitted any evidence to suggest that you may have breached the rules of the House.

  

The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides in paragraph 14 as follows:

  

"Members shall at all times ensure that their use of expenses, allowances, facilities and services provided from the public purse is strictly in accordance with the rules laid down on these matters, and that they observe any limits placed by the House on the use of such expenses, allowances, facilities and services."

  

The Green Book sets out the rules for claims against the Incidental Expenses Provision, which include office and equipment costs. The most relevant Green Books would appear to be the editions published in April 2005 and in July 2006.

  

In Mr Speaker Martin's introduction to both editions, he wrote as follows:

  

"Members themselves are responsible for ensuring that their use of allowances is above reproach. They should seek advice in cases of doubt and read the Green Book with care. In cases of doubt or difficulty about any aspect of the allowances or how they can be used, please contact the Department of Finance and Administration. The Members Estimate Committee, which I chair, has recently restated the Department's authority to interpret and enforce these rules."

  

The rules in relation to the Incidental Expenses Provision are set out in Section 5. For the purpose of this summary, I shall quote from the April 2005 edition, although the references are almost identical to those in the June 2003 and July 2006 editions. The scope of the allowance is set out in paragraph 5.1.1 as follows:

  

"The incidental expenses provision (IEP) is available to meet costs incurred on Members' Parliamentary duties. It cannot be used to meet personal costs, or the costs of party political activities or campaigning. The paragraphs which follow outline the main areas of expenditure which we recognise as incurred in supporting these duties, but it is each Member's responsibility to ensure that all expenditure funded by the IEP is wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred on Parliamentary duties."

  

Allowable expenditure is set out in paragraph 5.3.1 as follows:

  

  "The IEP may be used to meet the following expenses:

  

  • Accommodation for office or surgery use—or for occasional meetings
  • Equipment and supplies for the office or surgery
  • Work commissioned and other services
  • Certain travel and communications.

  

In addition, you may transfer money from the IEP to the staffing allowance to meet staffing costs."

  

And in paragraph 5.3.2:

  

"Section 5.13. lists examples of allowable and non-allowable expenditure under these headings. Even if an item is listed in the category of allowable expenditure, it is only allowable if the spend is wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred on Parliamentary duties. For further guidance please contact the help numbers above."

  

And paragraph 5.12.2 (5.12.1. of the June 2003 edition) provides, under the heading 'Propriety':

  

"You must avoid any arrangement which may give rise to an accusation that you—or someone close to you—is obtaining an element of profit from public funds; or that public money is being diverted for the benefit of a political organisation."

  

Paragraphs 5.13.2 and 5.13.3 provide the following examples allowable expenditure:

  

"5.13.2. Work commissioned and bought in services

  

Note: With the exception of costs associated with publications and websites, the costs listed below may also be met from the staffing allowance, provided that in any given year the costs of work commissioned do not exceed 25% of that budget.

  

Allowable expenditure:

  

  • Interpreting and translation services

(This includes sign language, interpretation and Braille translation)

  • Research and media scanning services
  • Consultancy eg on software or websites

  

  

Equipment and supplies for the office and/or surgery

  

5.13.3: Allowable expenditure

  

? Purchase or lease of photocopiers, faxes, scanners, phones and other office equipment, including computers

  

? Purchase of office furniture

  

? Purchase of stationery and consumables

  

? Purchase of hardware and software."

  

Section 12 of the Green Book provides as follows:

  

"Computers and other IT equipment for Members and their offices

  

This equipment is free of charge, on loan to Members for Parliamentary use only. It is provided by the Parliamentary Communications Directorate (PCD) on behalf of the Department of Finance and Administration.

  

Members can also use their IEP to buy additional items, providing they are used solely for Parliamentary purposes.

  

Further details are on the Parliamentary Intranet or via the help desk on [...]."

  

I would welcome your comments on this complaint in the light of this summary of the relevant rules. In particular, it would be helpful to know:

  

what computers provided free of charge by Parliament you have used for your parliamentary duties since 2004-05 and why you needed to buy each of the nine additional computers which you purchased from your IEP over the four financial years beginning in 2004-05;

  

whether the two separate claims in January 2008 for £498.95 were for different computers or whether they refer to the same machine;

  

what happened to each of these nine computers and where they are now;

  

what services were provided to you by the European Policy Institute in each financial year since 2004-05; why you selected this organisation to provide these services and what role if any your brother [name] had at the Institute and in the provision of the services to you;

  

whether you consulted the then Department of Resources (formerly the Department of Finance and Administration) or parliamentary IT managers about any aspect of these arrangements.

  

Any other points you may wish to make would, of course, be most welcome. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. I have written to the complainant to let him know that I have accepted his complaint and am writing to you about it.

  

I would be grateful if you could let me have a response within the next three weeks. If there is any difficulty about this, or you would like to have a word about any aspect of this matter, please contact me at the House.

  

Thank you for your help on this.

  

15 July 2009

6.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 16 July 2009

Thank you for your letter of 15th July with the complaint from [Mr Barnbrook].[261] I fully understand that you have to deal fairly with anyone who writes in with a complaint and I am glad of the opportunity to answer any queries.

  

[Material not relevant to the inquiry]

  

[Mr Barnbrook] appears to have taken his complaint from articles in the Mail on Sunday which over the years has run unpleasant articles about me and invaded my privacy and that of [...] and other family members.

  

I did give the Mail on Sunday statements of explanation which they did not publish in full. Instead the paper has taken stories from the Guardian in 2001 about the use of my home in Rotherham for constituency work and about the European Policy Institute which has organised conferences and publications as well as research over the past two decades. The Mail on Sunday then lifted almost verbatim a report in the Rotherham Advertiser after that paper has gone in detail through the IEP and ACA claims and found I had purchased a number of computers. I did show all the unredacted claim forms to local journalists just after the Telegraph broke its story.

  

I enclose an email which I sent to the Rotherham Advertiser which is on their website and which I hope answers all [Mr Barnbrook's] points.[262]

  

After I left office as Minister for Europe in 2005 I remained as active as ever on European political affairs. In addition to serving as a UK delegate on the Council of Europe and Nato Parliamentary Assembly the then Prime Minister asked me to keep working as his unofficial political envoy in Europe. It is no secret that as an MP I am known for my interest and knowledge in European affairs based on extensive travel, meetings and taking part in events with politicians on the continent.

  

That meant that since 2005 I have had a good number of paid and unpaid researchers and interns working in my office from the UK, USA and different European countries to help with me with Parliamentary work on European (EU and wider Europe) and international policy matters. I have always sought to provide them with equipment including computers and took for granted that the IEP could be used to make those purchases. I have also made sure that my homes were equipped and I have bought light-weight notebooks at airports. Some of these were replacement computers for computers that broke down or had dysfunctiong keyboards. As I write I am looking at two malfunctioning computers I bought which when time permits I will take to PICT and ask to see if they can be brought into service. My Sony broke down completely while on a Parliamentary delegation visit in Washington DC last November and could not be repaired. Writing this in my small Commons office I can see two laptops in addition to the desktop I am writing on and the Sony P lightweight notebook I have in my bag (in addition to the two computers previously mentioned that do not work). I saw an advert in the Times today for a more robust but lightweight ACER laptop with 8 hours battery life which would help me enormously when on the road. I will check on the point about the two computers purchased in 2008. I think I was upgrading computers in Rotherham. I do not think I could have submitted the same invoice twice if that is what [Mr Barnbrook] alleges and the Fees Office normally did check and pick up any discrepancy.

  

I have also had to organise research and translation work in different corners of Europe. To this end, on leaving ministerial office in 2005 I reactivated the European Policy Institute which as I told the Mail on Sunday was founded as a network of policy intellectuals in the 1990s and has published books, organised conferences and commissioned research. My brother is on an old letterhead as administrator but receives no payment or monies and never has. He has had no direct involvement for some time. All of this money claimed from under the IEP heading which in the previous and new Green Book permitted research and translation work was to carry on with my high level of European political work as a UK parliamentarian and for which, as you know, there is no payment or support of any kind.

  

To my certain knowledge the Fees Office has never queried any receipt I have submitted and of course I have always abided by their rulings.

  

I hope this reply helps clarify the points you raise and of course I stand ready to help further in any way and to abide by any decisions you come to.

  

[Material not relevant to the inquiry]

  

16 July 2009

7.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 16 July 2009: Statement issued to the Rotherham Advertiser by Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 25 June 2009

[Material not relevant to the inquiry]

  

In order to do my job as an MP I have to run two offices, one in Westminster and one in Rotherham, as well as two homes, one in Rotherham and a second in London. I see my prime responsibility as an MP to meet and serve the needs of my Rotherham constituents—individually and collectively; play my full role at Government at a national level; undertake those responsibilities asked of me by the Government at an international level and, in all these various roles doing my best to implement the policies and politics for which people elected me as their MP.

  

I did not come into politics to manage budgets, supplies, staffing etc and I am the first to acknowledge that this has not had the important and detailed attention which with hindsight I now realise I should have provided.

  

I spend a lot of time travelling and am on the road a lot, so like others in similar roles, computers, mobile phones and Blackberries are an absolute necessity and are in constant use seven days a week. In both my offices I employ permanent and part-time staff. Since 1994 I have always had one full-time constituency assistant in Rotherham as well as other part-time employees. I also have interns and short-term researchers working in my offices and most of the equipment purchased has been for their use and to ensure I have fully functioning offices. Camera, computer and phone technology are ever changing and I have sought to use the annual office costs allowance to maximise the technological opportunities for me and my staff to deal with a very demanding workload.

  

[Material not relevant to the inquiry]

  

The Prime Minister has made it a requirement for the expenses of all MPs in recent years to be checked by an independent body. I am very happy with this arrangement and if this independent scrutiny identifies any errors I will of course make the necessary repayments, including [...] the cost of research and translation work undertaken by the European Policy Institute in connection with my European political activities.

  

[Material not relevant to the inquiry]

  

25 June 2009

8.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 20 July 2009

Thank you very much for your letter of 16 July responding to mine of 15 July about this complaint in respect of the arrangement for your parliamentary office.[263]

  

It was very helpful to have this and I do appreciate receiving such a prompt response. I appreciate also that you are now away for the next three weeks and so will not receive this letter until after your return. Your initial response was, therefore, particularly appreciated.

  

You have offered further help. It would certainly be helpful to me if you could provide me with the following which I covered in my letter of 15 July[264]:

  

what computers provided free of charge by Parliament you have used since 2004-05 and a statement of the reasons for purchasing each of the computers identified in the complainant's list, and what happened to them. I appreciate that you may not have kept detailed records, but it would be helpful to have as accurate a recollection as possible of your reasons for buying each one and what became of each one;

  

fuller details of each of the 19 claims identified by the complainant for the work of the European Policy Institute from 2004-05 to 2007-08 and why you selected this organisation to provide these services to you. Again, it would be particularly helpful to know what was bought or supplied by the institute for each of the claims made. It would also be helpful to see examples of the research and translation work which was covered by any of these claims.

  

If you could let me have a response to this letter when you return from leave I will take this forward, subject, of course, to my own leave towards the end of August. Once I receive your response, I am likely to seek advice and comments from the Department of Resources.

  

Thank you again for your help.

  

20 July 2009

9.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 10 October 2009

I do most sincerely apologise for the time it has taken to reply to your letters just before the holiday period. I set out below as fully as I can my justification for using the European Policy Institute to claim back moneys I spent working on European affairs which I consider to be part and parcel of my Parliamentary work. As I said to you my brother [...] has had nothing to do with the EPI since some time and is not involved in any way with claims in the period under review.

  

September has been very busy with visits to Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Strasbourg in connection with parliamentary work [...]. That plus pre-election constituency work and normal party political work in the conference season has left me with little spare time. Now we wait for Sir T Legg's letters.[265] I was taught at school the maxim "Non Judicabit Deus bis in idipsum" but it seems we are all to be judged and judged and judged—by the press, by political opponents, by our peers, and by different committee and then again by the press etc. Forgive this moan but this whole process—the first in my 15 years as an MP and indeed the first in nearly four decades of professional life regularly claiming expenses and allowances—has really weighed heavily.

  

I will reply later on the computers questions but as I said to the press these were bought to have a fully equipped facility for computer communication in two homes, as well as lightweight travel computers, two of which broke down and needed replacement as well as providing computers for the flow of interns or one-off research assistants I have in my office.

  

European Policy Institute

  

The European Policy Institute was created in the early 1990s in Geneva as an informal network of writers and political activists interested in European affairs. It has published books and reports and bulletins. It was used by different people as a vehicle for payments and for publishing or conference organising activities. It has no full-time staff. It has paid for travel, research, translation, purchase of reports and books connected to European political activities on an informal basis. I have used it over a number of years to cover costs relating to my parliamentary work, for example as Chair of the All-Party Committee of Enquiry into Anti-Semitism (2005-2008) where no other source of parliamentary funding was available or when travelling to prepare for the many debates on European affairs including the debates on the Lisbon Treaty.

  

2005

  

So in the final months of 2004 I was exploring the impact on British politics of the new Zapatero government in Spain. I collaborated with [name], formerly special adviser to Robin Cook when Foreign Secretary who by then was based in Madrid. This involved a trip to Madrid and a hotel stay plus purchase of books and meetings with policy specialists and Spanish parliamentarians. The costs were met from the EPI.

  

As former chair of the British-Swiss Parliamentary Group and as someone who lived and worked in Geneva for a number of years before becoming an MP in 1994 I have always taken a keen interest in Swiss political and economic affairs and made a point of travelling regularly to Berne, Geneva and Zurich to meet MPs and officials there. So in January 2005 I made such a trip using the EPI for reimbursement. I commissioned a report from a Geneva based consultant, [name], for which I paid (from memory) CHF 500 in cash.

  

This was followed by a visit to Warsaw ahead of the Polish accession to the European Union. My father was a Polish army officer newly commissioned in 1939 who was wounded in the September campaign against the Wehrmacht at the beginning of WW2 and who then escaped to France to be evacuated to Scotland. There he met my mother. I was a main go-between for western trade unions and the Solidarity trade union in 1980-1981 and was briefly imprisoned in 1982 by the communists when caught running money to the underground Polish Solidarity union. Since becoming an MP I have taken a sustained interest in Polish links. Not having the language, alas, I have used the EPI to pay informally for research and translation as well as to cover flight and hotel costs as in the spring of 2005.

  

Spring 2005

  

The payments claimed here relate to an intense period of activity prior to and connected with the presumed general election that year. I asked my network of correspondents to prepare reports on how Britain was seen from the point of view of various European countries in order to prepare debating points and arguments for use in parliament and in media and Commons debates with the Conservative opposition.

  

The EPI produced an analysis in different languages as well as a report under my name on the position of Labour's sister parties in the EU.

  

Summer 2005

  

The key issue in Europe in this period were the referendums in France and the Netherlands on the constitutional Treaty. The issue was a hot subject in the Commons and in order to brief myself as fully as possible I travelled to France and the Netherlands [to] investigate on the ground what the arguments were. I bought a considerable number of newspapers, magazines and books over this period which I used EPI payments to cover. I had research undertaken in different capitals on how they would react to the No from the French and the Dutch. These informed my interventions in the House and in British public debate on the issue in which I took a leading part in this period.

  

Autumn 2005

  

The Prime Minister asked me to be his envoy to European political parties and personalities meeting people informally and reporting back to No 10—principally to his European adviser, [name] and his chief of staff, [name]. I met the PM at Downing Street to report on my impressions and to help him keep informed from other than formal diplomatic sources on development in Europe. As is well-known Whitehall has no way of paying for this kind of work undertaken at the Prime Minister's request which involves travel, research, contacts, hotels, purchase of books and journals etc. For wealthy individuals like, for example, [name] who also acted as an unofficial envoy for the PM in Latin America and the Middle East has considerable personal wealth to allow him to pay all costs associated with that job. I had four [...] children, two mortgages, and an MP's salary so felt it was reasonable to use the Commons allowances to cover costs of work that lay at the centre of my Parliamentary activities. In this period, I spoke in every FCO question session usually on Europe and in most foreign policy and international debates. I wrote a great deal, occasionally for payment as recorded in the Register for Members' Interests, but usually unpaid and broadcast regularly on my Parliamentary work on European political affairs. I spoke at events all over the country and in Europe on European affairs. Again, I could not have undertaken this intense level of work in which up-to-date knowledge of EU developments and European political affairs (much of it only available in languages which needed translating) without being able to call on the modest sums claimed via the EPI.

  

2006

  

The work as a personal envoy for the PM continued throughout the year. In the first months of 2006 I went to Switzerland twice to meet with Swiss politicians, editors and diplomats. The issue of the Swiss negotiating an agreement with the EU to allow free movement of people was important. Some years previously I had persuaded the Government to allow Swiss citizens to enter the UK using the same channel at airports as EU citizens. Now the Swiss were involved in tricky negotiations, which involved Britain as an interlocutor, with the European Commission on free movement of people and solidarity payments by the Swiss to the EU.

  

I went to Paris to promote the cause of recognition of Kosovo which was a priority for the Government. I met French politicians and ambassadors of key states to press the case. In the spring I travelled to Pristina for meetings with Kosovan political leaders. By now I was established as a UK delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. This was parliamentary work outside of the Commons and being informed, briefed and up-to-date on European political and defence/security matters required intensive research, briefing and translation which was covered by EPI payments.

  

In February 2006 I went to Poland and prepared a report on Polish politics for the PM at his request. On average over this period I tried to go to Poland at least twice a year. I have family links and was arrested and briefly imprisoned by the Polish communists in 1982 when caught running money to the underground Solidarity union. I do not speak Polish beyond a few words and have had to ask for translations of material in order to be fully briefed.

  

In March 2006 I went to Berlin at the PM's request to talk to the Energy Minister, Sigmund Gabriel and the leadership of the Social Democratic Party then in coalition with the CDU. This was useful to my parliamentary interventions on EU energy policy and on the foreign policy approach of the new German coalition government. I met diplomats and editors there and bought €100+ worth of books on aspects of German politics. Again I used EPI claimed for money to help cover the costs of these trips which I consider helped to improve my ability to contribute as an MP to the UK debate on German and EU politics.

  

By this stage I was chairing the All-Party Commission of Enquiry into Anti-Semitism. This was set up in 2005 and reported in September 2006. Iain Duncan-Smith, Chris Huhne and Lady Sylvia Hermon were amongst the 12 members of the Commission many of them former ministers or Privy Councillors.

  

I travelled to Paris, Amsterdam, again to Berlin and Rome to have talks with different Jewish organisations. I used EPI money claimed in 2006 to help defray costs and to have translations done and buy books in French and German on anti-Semitism.

  

The autumn of 2006 saw travel to Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and to Berlin to speak on my Commission's report on anti-Semitism. The EPI payments recorded in September, October, and November of 2006 helped cover these costs as well as helping with translation into and from different European languages.

  

2007

  

2007 was more or less the same as the previous two years and two succeeding years in terms of regular visits to different parts of Europe, the purchase of journals and book and organising translations. I was in France in the spring of 2007 in connection with the French presidential election. I was now working actively on combating anti-Semitism at the European level, meeting politicians and researchers on this issue and reading widely which involved buying books which I used money claimed under the EPI heading to pay for. In April 2007 the Government produced its Command Paper response to my Commission's report. A key recommendation was the need to engage in European and international parliamentary and government work to fight and expose anti-Semitism. This was a new area of parliamentary work—reflected in questions and contributions to debates—in addition to my continuing work on European politics where my contributions in the House and public debate in 2007 are a matter of record also required being in touch with politicians and researchers in different European countries where anti-Semitism is a problem.

  

I spent time in France after the election in May 2007 to gauge the changes in the way France was likely to approach issues like the problems of immigration by asylum seekers clustered on the north French coast who seek entry into the UK. At each of my fortnightly surgeries in Rotherham about half the people who come along are asylum seekers who make no secret they arrived via people smuggling criminal gangs who use lorries to bring asylum seekers and economic migrants in from France. Finding out from French politicians and officials about this problem was a contribution to my ability to intervene usefully in this area of European politics.

  

I was by now actively researching contemporary European anti-Semitism which involved visits to Frankfurt and Grenoble. I was invited by Jacques Delors to join a committee to draw up a short-list for the European Book of the Year on which I still serve. Again, there were no funds to cover the costs of travel and staying in Paris for these meetings and since I used them to try and advance the case of British writers, including helping to steer the committee to chose the work of British historian [...] in 2008 I thought it reasonable to use EPI money to cover these costs.

  

I hope the above arguments provide some background as I explained in previous letters to you why I believe it was reasonable to claim moneys for parliamentary activity which could not be sourced in any other way.

  

I enclose copies of work translated into different European languages over the period concerned, some of which was covered by EPI payments.[266]

  

As I told you on the phone I am happy to abide by any judgement you make. If told to make rectification I will do so but with some concern as it will mean that in the future I will not be able to be as engaged on European political work which has informed all my Parliamentary work in recent years.

  

10 October 2009

10.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 14 October 2009

Thank you for your letter of 10 October[267] responding to my letter to you of 20 July[268] about this complaint in respect of your claim against the incidental expenses provision from 2004-05 to 2008-09.

  

In my letter of 20 July[269], I asked for further details of each of the 19 claims identified by the complainant for the work of the European Policy Institute for 2004-05 to 2007-08. Your letter helpfully describes the activities you undertook with the support of the EPI over those years. I think it would be helpful for me to have as clear an idea as possible of what each of the claims covered, and I have, therefore, drawn up the attached schedule based on the information you have provided.[270]

  

I would be most grateful if you would

  

either confirm or amend the attached schedule, which I will then use as a basis for this inquiry.[271] In particular, I would be grateful if you could provide information about the payments claimed on 9 December 2005, 29 November 2007 and 4 January 2008. It would also be helpful if you could explain why there is apparently such a wide variation in costs for the various activities you describe;

  

help me on how much you spent on translation, research and books and how much on accommodation and travel within each of these claims;

  

confirm that the 30 or so articles you sent me, for which I was very grateful, were all researched or translated (or both) by the EPI;

  

confirm the date when your brother ceased to be involved with the EPI;

  

clarify for me your own involvement with the EPI. I see from your letter of 16 July that you reactivated the institute when you left ministerial office in 2005.[272] Could you let me know how you did that; whether you hold any position with the EPI, and (if possible) what proportion of the EPI income for each of the years in question was represented by your claims (or if not how I could get hold of that information) and whether you considered an alternative supplier for your translation and research work.

  

It would be very helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter in the next three weeks. Meanwhile, I look forward to receiving a response to my question about your purchase of computers which I included to my letter to you of 20 July.[273]

  

14 October 2009

  

11.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 29 October 2009

I am replying to your letter of 14th October[274] which I enclose for ease of reference and I hope I have covered the points you raise in the enclosed documents.[275] I would be happy to meet you if you have further questions.

  

As you can imagine I have been turning over and over in my mind this issue in the months since the initial Mail on Sunday report and then [Mr Barnbrook's] complaint.

  

Was I wrong to use the IEP expenses system to claim payments made to the EPI which in essence was a way of being reimbursed for what I sincerely considered to be expenses connected to my parliamentary work on Europe where, it would be fair to say, I am one of the most active of Parliamentarians?

  

At the time my answer would have been No. All my working life first as a BBC producer, then as a trade unionist, and since 1994 as an MP I have used systems of allowances and expenses to help me do my job without bothering too much about anything other than getting the job in hand done. I confess I am casual and careless on expenses and if anything spend moneys without getting receipts and not claiming. I wish MPs had a personal finance officer to do all the filing, listing and claiming. My desk is awash with tiny receipts and documents from my tax return to mileage forms which have not been completed.

  

But today, as we all face the public concern over how MPs have claimed expenses I realise that what was done in the past is no longer acceptable. I hope you will find that my claims were reasonable. But as I told you on the phone if you judge that rectification of all or part of the claims about which the complaint is made are necessary then of course I shall comply under clause B of subparagraph 3 of Standing Order 150 as set out on pages 20-21 of your 2008-2009 report.[276]

  

29 October 2009

12.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 29 October 2009: Notes for Parliamentary Commissioner

Notes for Parliamentary Commissioner - following his schedule of queries as in his letter of 14th October 2009[277]

  

Points 1 and 2)

  

9 December 2005.

  

I was asked in November 2005 by [name] the Prime Minister's Chief European Advisor to go to Paris to talk to editors and French opinion-makers about the crisis over the EU budget. I noted at the time that he said: "[Chief of Staff] and Tony would appreciate it if you could go and talk to any of your friends and spell it out that this is the last chance of getting a deal on the budget." The trip to Paris was around the order of £350 for a return fare, 20-30 for taxis. Sometimes I would stay with friends or with the British Ambassador if he had a spare room at the residence, or else at a modest hotel like the [name of hotel] which costs around €120. I used the EPI payments to cover these costs. I did not exactly list every cost but averaged what I paid out so that I was not out of pocket. The civil service allowance for travel abroad varies from country to country but I sought to stay under it within my own framework of what was fair to charge to undertake parliamentary and political work. I used this time to do some research for an essay on the legacy of Francois Mitterrand. The tenth anniversary of his death fell in the period covered by this EPI payment. I referred to this in parliamentary and political work at the time.

  

I made a second trip also to Paris early December 2005 to meet [name], the editor of le Monde, to make the argument for UK interests. To the best of my recollection I stayed in the UK Ambassador's residence in Paris so there were no hotel costs. The EPI payment referred to above was to help defray the costs of these trips and other general work and sums expended in connection with my European parliamentary/political work.

  

29 November 2007

  

This covers two trips—one to Berlin to keep in touch with political and parliamentary colleagues there. As I recall I went on a fairly cheap flight around the £150 mark but I also bought books and informed myself on the German approach to the Lisbon Treaty as we were limbering up for the Lisbon Treaty debates in the Commons in which I was one of the main and regular speakers from the Government side. On 18th November I made a trip to Paris to interview a set of possible replacement PA's for my Parliamentary office. I have always sought to have at least one of my full-time co-workers in the Commons from an EU member state in addition to the network of EPI collaborators. I also paid cash €100 to EPI collaborator, [name] for help with a paper I used later in debates.

  

I freely confess that I did not make an exact listing of every receipt for taxis, books, journals, meals, etc. I have attached below a list of books bought. I could of course have asked the Library to procure them for me but as I saw them in bookshops [on my] travels in Europe it seemed easier and more natural to buy them and use EPI claims to cover costs. The differences in claims simply were whether one or more trip was involved - each averaging around £400 and whether I had forgotten to claim for one in a previous claim.

  

4 January 2008

  

This covered a pre-Christmas trip to Warsaw to meet EPI collaborators [names] and hold meetings with Gazeta Wyborcza editor [name]. I paid [the second collaborator] €200 for help with translation and bought [the first collaborator] a very large dinner for his continuing help with my queries about political developments in Poland—a country I track closely but without any Polish beyond simple courtesies I need help with translation of material and with interpretation. Again I sought the cheapest possible airfare and stayed with the UK Ambassador there. But the total amount spent on the trip was in excess of £600.

  

I enclose a list of books bought though I appear to have mislaid one sheet listing French books which I will try and find to send on to you.[278]

  

Point 3)

  

Most of the articles in foreign languages I sent you were researched and some were translated by EPI friends or researched by myself on EPI funded trips. I have good French and reasonable German and Spanish but cannot write with grammatical perfection in any European language so would ask EPI collaborators to help do initial drafts or polish up work prior to publication. I would make modest cash payments as and when I saw people who helped me or entertain at my (EPI) expense as a payment in kind.

  

Point 4)

  

My brother, [name], kindly let me use his London address and name when the EPI was launched in 1992 when I lived and worked in Geneva. But he never took any direct, active part in its work other than the use of one of his business addresses in London to receive mail etc. He is still very upset that the Mail on Sunday used his name and I deeply regret that instead of making a "No Comment" to the paper they took my words to mean that he was currently engaged and active which is not true.

  

[...] I have told him that I have told you that he is in no way to be linked with the EPI and that I accept full responsibility. He seems to think it is a matter just of repaying (rectifying any EPI) moneys and [...] while I am willing to make any rectification you demand I do honestly believe that the moneys claimed were connected with my parliamentary work on European affairs. [...] Therefore let me stress that I and I alone take all responsibility in this matter and [name] has not been linked to the EPI in any formal sense since the middle 1990s.

  

Point 5)

  

As I wrote to you previously, the EPI was set up by a group of pro-European policy writers, journalists and activists in the 1990s. It produced reports, published books and organised conferences. Right now it has a project to prepare a multi-lingual report on the current state of play of Turkey's bid to join the EU. There is another book project. I was by far the main organiser, editor. I used it carry on my European parliamentary work in terms of travel, translation, etc. after I stopped being a minister. I also used the EPI to help defray costs related to my work as Chair of the All-Party Committee of Inquiry into Anti-Semitism that began in 2005 with reference to material from continental Europe on this issue. Most of the income since 2005 in the EPI has been from the IEP claims I made.

  

The EPI is not an office and has never been above the VAT threshold as all moneys going in and have been paid out to cover costs. It was just easier to cover the costs of what I was doing using this means. I accept fully that this arrangement was informal and unusual but at the time it made sense in terms of my trying to maintain a high level of involvement in European affairs which I considered necessary for carrying out my parliamentary duties. I accept fully as I told you on the phone there may have been some overlap between parliamentary and political involvement in European affairs but since I am regularly called upon by the media to comment on aspects of European politics as they pertain to the House of Commons I could see no other way of funding this work save by using the EPI as a means of securing reimbursement for moneys paid out. I am clear in my own mind that what I claimed was to cover expenses connected with my work as an MP but I can also understand that others may place a different interpretation. I am happy to rectify any payments if so directed either in whole or in part.

  

Books Purchased Using EPI Expenses

L'Etat du monde, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2007 2008  €25 each €150

  

S Scheil Logik der Machte: Europa und Globaliserung  €36

  

HJ Schrotter Europa Lexicon      €19.90

  

M Geyer Operation Rot-Griin      €15

  

S Aust Der Fall Deutschland      €20

  

M Schmidt Das politische System Deutschland  €12.80

  

T Baumann Die Spinnen, die Deutschen    €8

  

U Beck Kosmopolitisches Europa      €18

  

S Wanniger New Labour und die EU      €29

  

Langenscheit Worterbuch        €75

  

B Engelmann Du deutsch        SFR17.80

  

F Merli Das neue Polen in Europa      €55

  

G Quenzel Konstruktion von Europa      €28

  

G Schröder Erinnerung        €30

  

Dicionaria de la lengua espanol      €42

  

J Reverte El Arte de Matar        €28

  

[Note: Manuscript note on list says at this point that there is a full page missing which will be supplied later. No such list has been received.]

  

Pour l'Europe, R. Schuman        €15

  

Ceuta, Melilla, Olivenza y Gibraltar. Dónde acaba Espana?, M. Cajal         €16

  

Deutsche Aphorismen, F. Hindermann    €12

  

Plus encore ! F. de Closets        €20.90

  

Entscheidungen, G. Schroeder      €28

  

Les Juifs au Pays du Mont Blanc, G. Grandjacques  €23

  

Frere Tariq, C. Fourest        €19.50

  

Le liquidateur, P. Moscovici        €18

  

La discorde, R. Brauman        €20

  

Adieu a terminus, J. Kuntz        SFR 39.70

  

Supplique aux progressistes, R. Debray    €5.50

  

Le croissant et le chaos, 0. Roy      €14

  

Le monde moderne, E. Morin      SF 23.70

  

Le pouvoir et la vie, V. Giscard d'Estaing    €21.90

  

L'Europe, L. Febvre        €24

  

Un antisemitisme ordinaire. R. Badinter    €10

  

Le discours de la haine, A. Glucksman    €18

  

Juifs et Arabes au XXe siècle, M. Abitbol    €9.50

  

Iran, le choix des armes ? F. Heisbourg    €15.50

  

L'islamisme en face, F. Burgat      €12

  

La verite sur Tariq Ramadan, I. Hamel    €19

  

La furza de los pocos, A. Ortega      (€60)

  

La genese des trait& de Rome, Fondation Jean Monnet  €34

  

Dieudonne &masque, A-S. Mercier      €18

  

Al Qaeda in its own words, G. Keppel    £21

  

Computers Bought by D MacShane MP

14.3.05 This was a lightweight Sony Vaio bought for travel use. It was not very robust.

  

2.11.05 This was bought when I moved to a new home [...] and installed a computer there.

  

28.12.05 This was bought for my then PA/Intern, [name], who was doing research work for me often in another office in the Commons as well as at her home. I should explain that my office in the Commons [...] is about the size of a large railway carriage and I have required researchers/interns often to do some of their work away from the Commons and felt it reasonable to provide them with the tools to do the job.

  

13.02.06 This was bought to replace the Sony Vaio computer which had broken down.

  

7.12.06 This was bought to have a hi-quality computer in my study in my constituency home.

  

5.07.07 This was bought for a new researcher working on Spanish political affairs, [name] who was doing work for me, often away from the office.

  

24.09.07 This was bought for [name], my dictation typist who has worked from her home for me for 15 years. She said her computer was out of date, which it was, and I felt it reasonable as I was within the spending limits to provide equipment (dictation transcription machines, computer, printer etc) for her to carry out parliamentary work for me.

  

11.01.08 This was bought for [name], a PA/intern who had to work from home, at nights and over the weekend.

  

17.01.08 This was bought for [name], a PA/Intern who was carrying out research and who needed a computer to work away from the office at weekends, evenings etc.

  

29 October 2009

13.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 10 November 2009

Thank you very much for your letter of 29 October[279] responding to mine of 14 October[280] about this complaint. In view of its complexity, I hope it might be helpful if I summarize again where we have got to and identify any points that need clarification before I seek advice from the Department of Resources.

  

Referring to the EPI, I attach first a revised schedule of the payments you made to the EPI, summarizing the evidence you have given to me.[281] As you will see, it reflects the fact that you are not able to provide a full breakdown of your expenditure or the categories under which it was incurred. If this is incorrect or the summary is insufficient in any regard, please let me know at once. Otherwise, I will take it as a reasonable and accurate summary of your evidence of the payments you made to EPI.

  

Secondly, could you let me know why instead of claiming via the EPI for research, translation, literature and travel costs, you did not claim these directly from your allowances, where permissible?

  

And thirdly, I would be grateful if you could confirm the status of this organization. Is it, for example, a virtual organization which was used by you to make payments direct for a range of facilities and services as described in your evidence to me? Could you help me on the arrangements for this organization — does it have a bank account and office holders; is it a company or partnership; who are its employees; and could I see copies of its accounts for the relevant years?

  

On your expenditure on computers, I was grateful for the information about nine computers which you purchased. I would be grateful if you could help me clarify the following points:

  

1. I am having some difficulty reconciling this list with the information you provided in your letter to me of 16 July.[282] I note you refer to a Sony Vaio computer which broke down on a visit to Washington DC in November 2008. That is not, of course, relevant to this particular complaint, but perhaps you could confirm whether that is the same computer for which you claimed on 13 February 2006, replacing the Sony for which you claimed on 14 March 2005.

  

2. Could you also confirm that you were mistaken in suggesting in your letter of 16 July that the two computers purchased in 2008 were to upgrade computers in Rotherham?[283] It would appear from the note attached to your letter of 29 October that they were in fact bought for two PAs/interns.[284]

  

3. Could you let me know, as requested in my initial letter to you of 15 July, where each of these nine computers is now?[285] From what you have told me, it would seem that two were bought, in about November 2005 and December 2006, for your own use at home (one for your main home and one for your constituency home). I assume they are still working and are being used for your parliamentary duties. It seems that two Sony Vaios were bought for travel use - but it may well be that neither is still working. The remaining five were bought for your staff, but it is not clear if you still have these computers, even if the staff themselves have since moved on. I would be grateful for clarification of this;

  

4. Finally, could you let me know what computers provided free of charge by Parliament you have used since 2004-05 as requested in my letters to you of 15 and 20 July and could you let me know why you needed the bought computers in addition to the free provision.[286]

  

I would like to make progress with this inquiry, so would be very grateful if you could respond to this in the next two weeks.

  

Thank you for your help.

  

10 November 2009

14.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 19 November 2009

I am replying, in part and in haste, to your letter of 10th November which I have just got.[287] I am just back from Brussels and was in Edinburgh at the Nato Parliamentary Assembly 13-16 November and then in the Chamber to speak in the Queen's Speech yesterday before getting a 0507 train in Brussels this morning. I have to get to my constituency tonight and then travel to Newcastle tomorrow to chair a major UK-Spanish political and business conference until Sunday. This letter is written in haste as I try and get out to catch my train north. I put all this down to try and indicate that it is not absence of good will but just immense pressure of time and work that is delaying my reply.

  

I now find as I hunt around my desk that I cannot find my file (and am very concerned in case it has been removed deliberately but, sadly, I am the worst paper organiser and record keeper in the world so it is probably lost in the midst of a mass of other papers and will turn up) but I do recall that my letter to you of 29 October[288] was based on your 2-page letter of 14th October which asked me to reply to a schedule.[289] I had assumed there might be some piece of extra paper with a list in it but there was none so I tried to give detail of the 3 dates you required. I now see from the note headed "Payments to EPI" that you appear to want much greater details covering all of the claims not just the three mentioned in your letter.

  

Is this the case? I will comply of course with all requests but this will require more research into notebooks etc to provide the details you want. I will be in my office I hope with some time to work on all of this next week and if you can call me or let me know exactly what dates you want an explanation for I will do my best to provide it.

  

19 November 2009

15.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 23 November 2009

Thank you for your letter of 19 November[290] following up mine of 10 November[291] summarising where I thought we had got to on my inquiries into this complaint and asking you for some additional information, both in respect of the EPI and your expenditure on computers.

  

I attach a further copy of my letter to you of 14 October,[292] to which I annexed the first draft of a schedule intended to summarise the information you had given me in your letter of 10 October.[293] As you will see, I asked a number of follow-up questions. The schedule left blank the explanation for three dates: 9 December 2005, where you had claimed £550; 29 November 2007, where you had claimed £550; and 4 January 2008, where you had claimed £650. I am sorry if it was not clear to you that those were the gaps I needed to have filled, as well as needing responses to the additional issues I described in that letter.

  

I sent you on 10 November a revised schedule[294] which summarised for the three dates the information which you had sent me in your letter of 29 October.[295] These were identified by being typed in italics and explained in the footnote. The schedule, with the detailed explanations given, was otherwise unchanged from the version I sent you on 14 October. I attach a copy of that letter of 10 November.[296]

  

You ask whether I would like to have much greater details covering all the claims you have made in respect of the work undertaken by the EPI. The answer is that it would be helpful to have a full breakdown of each of the claims you have made in respect of the EPI, together with the relevant invoices. When I wrote to you on 20 July, I asked for fuller details of each of these 19 claims, including what was bought or supplied by the institute for each of the claims made.[297] The schedule attached to my letter of 14 October[298] identified the information you had provided in your letter of 10 October.[299] As you will see from my letter of 10 November, I thought it right to point out that that the information you had provided did not give me a full breakdown of your expenditure or the categories under which it was incurred.[300] If you have such information, in whatever level of detail you have retained it, including invoices identifying the services provided and the costs of those services in each of your relevant claims, then it would be very helpful to have it. I will then be able to revise the schedule and provide a much clearer understanding how each of these claims was built up. If, however, you have given me all that you can, I ask you to confirm this, and I will then take the summary as the best information you can now provide me with.

  

The outstanding information I have requested therefore relates to the computers provided free of charge by Parliament since 2004-05 and what happened to each of the nine computers you bought and where they are now, which I asked about on 15 July;[301] and to the claims you made for payments to the EPI. I hope it will be possible for you to provide this information in the next two weeks. But if you remain unclear about this request, or would otherwise like to have a word, please do contact me at the House.

  

Thank you for your help.

  

23 November 2009

16.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 1 December 2009

This is a further holding letter as I have been handling in recent months [personal information] today—which would have been dedicated to trying to finalise a reply to your points—has been spent in [personal information].

  

Sunday-Wednesday of next week I am at the Congress of the Party of European Socialists in Prague and then at non-stop events Thursday-Monday 14th December in my constituency.

  

I have been spending more time trying to contact people and recall trips and work connected with my European parliamentary/political activity related to EPI claims than on almost any other bit of parliamentary work since returning from the summer break. The BNP knows what it is doing when it makes this complaint based on the newspaper reports sensationalised in the summer.[302]

  

As the Legg inquiries show, the plain fact is that MPs are not book-keepers and do not have tidy files and records since our work is as public representatives and public policy people, not clerks or accountants.

  

I am trying my best to get up early and find moments to reply to all your queries going back over 5 years of work. I am contact with different people around Europe and elsewhere in the world. I would have hoped to finish this this week but [...] has completely thrown me off-kilter. There is no need to reply to this letter which I write in haste to let you know I am trying to give you what you have asked for as fast as I humanly can.

1 December 2009

17.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 11 January 2010

I try to set out below my replies to your letters of 10th November and 23rd November 2009.[303] I apologise for lateness in reply. You kindly wrote to me after [personal information] which necessitated a degree of organisation [personal information].[304] I was travelling extensively in December and after the New Year. And to be honest it is rather hard to be campaigning against the BNP in my constituency and nationally ([the BNP] target me especially given my writings and interventions attacking their anti-Semitic and xenophobic politics) and then have to justify my European work and the research I carried out or had commissioned which I claimed for.

  

I am attaching further documents relevant to EPI's existence.[305] It is frustrating that reports, pamphlets and books the EPI published including a major one on the Euro for Robin Cook or a collection of essays on international labour issues by Lord Brett are not to hand. MPs have no storage space and my office drowns in paper as it is so material is ruthlessly disposed of. I attach letters from academics and others on the continuing existence of the EPI.[306]

  

The 2005 Green Book at the start of this period (Section 5.13.2) allowed payments for research, interpreting and translation services. I took this to cover carrying out my own research based on face-to-face contacts in addition to translations of articles/notes you have been sent. I have asked people paid for by EPI payments to send in statements which I attach and they show payments of €5,700 plus US$950.[307] I attach these receipt statements. Others who have helped me include government officials and employees of NGOs who would prefer not to make formal statements of modest EPI payments since as I understand it anything I send to you may end up published on the record.

  

As I explained in earlier letters I felt that in order to maintain my parliamentary work as one of the House's "experts" on Europe I needed to maintain a level of face-to-face contact and dialogue with EU politicians and policy/opinion formers across the range. I can speak three European languages but need help with translation and such help was paid for in cash since to go through a formal translation/interpretation agency is costly and cumbersome.

  

I did on occasion claim the European Travel Allowance which is quite limited but this did not allow the flexibility of visits and arrangements, often made at short notice that I required. Moreover the European Travel Allowance pays full business class and hotel costs so that, for example, a trip to any remoter European capital can cost £2,000 or more. The Department of Resources can confirm this. Many of the EPI payments made, including for Easyjet travel, came under the £250 limit required for receipts. I have never charged the IEP for office rental and felt it was reasonable to use some of the permitted IEP allowance to carry out my European research. In order to maximise visit possibilities I felt it better to make two or even three trips rather than limit myself to the 3 x per annum European Extended Travel visit. In my judgement if the House permitted any number of Extended Travel trips within the UK in connection with Parliamentary work it was reasonable to seek, within the overall limits of the IEP allowance, to make some low-costs trips to Europe as part of my continuing interventions in the House on Europe. I also used EPI moneys to have translated articles which you have been sent.

  

I have no private income or external sponsors to allow this work to be carried out. I felt that using the EPI as a vehicle to cover costs and payments was reasonable though in the light of new, stringent interpretations on what MPs can and cannot claim for I accept that I may have been too relaxed in making claims. As I have said I am willing to make rectifications if that is so decided.

  

I have been hunting through old files to show reports and books and conferences published and organised by the EPI. It is not a company, nor a partnership (in the sense of lawyers or GPs) has no office, and a bank account which has never reached VAT registrable levels so there have been no accounts to audit or submit. I enclose letters from [name of EPI contact], [name of EPI contact], and [name of EPI contact] which refer to their invitations to me in connection with EPI activity to speak at events.

  

In the last Parliament as I ceased to be a Minister I used the EPI almost entirely to cover the costs I have described and to claim from the Fees Office to cover those costs. In the next Parliament, (assuming my re-election) I plan to upgrade its activities with a full-time researcher/organiser, [name] (currently with the Party of European Socialists in Brussels) but even then it will be located in our respective computers and I doubt if it will ever attain the status of a full-scale office operation. It is already commissioned to publish a report on the new barriers to Turkey's future admission to the European Union and I will be travelling to Istanbul to carry out work in that regard. I would it [were] possible for me as an MP to exercise my judgement on what work I need to carry out. For good or ill I am an expert on European affairs. Other colleagues may travel freely using Extended Travel allowances to any corner of the UK to research matters or meet people in connection with matters before Parliament. I have spoken more on European issues than any other subject in the last five years and rightly or wrongly felt it reasonable to use the EPI as a payment method for researching this work which was to help me as an MP. As previously stated I am content to make rectifications and apologise to the S&P Committee if you so decide.  

  

11 January 2010

  

18.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: Note on computers

Computers

  

1) I have slightly lost track of the computer saga. As with Blackberries, Palm Pilots, mobile phones, printers, photo-copiers and other office equipment I treat computers as tools to be used, discarded, bought for co-workers and provided I was within the office costs allowance limit I gave no thought to the cost of purchase. The lap-tops provided by the Commons authorities are clunky, slow and heavy. There is one Commons lap-top in my office. [These] keyboards are notoriously sticky after about a year's use and I would have replaced one of these in my work areas in Rotherham and [London]. But I do not keep any kind of file or inventory of all this electronic equipment. I discussed this with other MP colleagues and they buy different bits of equipment like expensive colour printers or colour photo-copiers or more expensive Apple Mac computers as they and staff do not like the PC type computers supplied centrally. To be honest I could not account for mobile phones or printers though the complainant and the press could have just as easily have listed all of those from the published IEP claims.

  

2) Some of these computers are just lying gathering dust in my offices or have been thrown away when they stopped working properly. As with printers and fax machines that are bought, break down and in due course thrown away. I do not get any inventory of computers. They were bought as and when for myself and for staff as listed in previous notes to sent to you.

  

3) I have bought 3 Sony Vaios for travel use as they are wonderfully light but not very robust. Two of these broke down and one was replaced by a more modern version with wi-fi.

  

4) The Commons provided computers with operating systems and word programmes that become out-of-date and which are not Wi-fi equipped. I am writing this on a mainframe that keeps glueing up and where I have spent frustrating hours talking to PICT or getting their engineers around. I do not use any of the Commons laptops though I can see two in my office as I write. If we had been told by the Fees Office not to buy equipment which in my judgement I needed for myself and staff I would have complied but in my 15 years as an MP I have always bought whatever equipment I wanted provided it was within the limits of the allowance. I have tried to allocate different computers to different researchers/interns who have worked for me.

  

11 January 2010

19.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: Letter from a remunerated EPI collaborator (1), 22 December 2009

(Approximate translation of letter sent in French)

  

I understand that there is some question over the payments you made to me in connection with your parliamentary work under the auspices of the European Policy Institute. I am writing to confirm to whom it may concern that in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you have paid me in cash SFR 400 each year in addition to hospitality when you have visited Geneva for translation, research and other general advice on political developments in Switzerland as they relate to the United Kingdom. I hope this is helpful.

  

22 December 2009

  

20.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: Letter from a remunerated EPI collaborator (2), 23 December 2009

I am sorry to hear that you are being audited by the House of Commons after a complaint [...].

  

I am happy to confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you paid me in cash when we saw each other sums averaging €500 for all the bits and piece of work —translating, analysing French and international labor politics that you asked me to ahead of your regular visits to France and on the French media to discuss UK and European politics. I can also confirm that you paid me US$950 to read and edit your manuscript of the work on antisemitism arising from the Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism you chaired on behalf of the UK Parliament. You also kindly bought me dinners or lunch (though I have no idea of their cost) and I value our collaboration together.

  

As a retired US citizen of Belgian extraction living in France I have enjoyed working with you and the modest honorariums you have paid have been useful though the pleasure in our collaboration has been the more important aspect. [...] as someone who has worked so hard to promote good understanding of European and international labor work as well as your vital Parliamentary work on anti-semitism I am concerned that you are under any kind of pressure and I willingly make this attestation which I am happy to swear with a Notary if that is necessary.

  

23 December 2009

21.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: E-mail from a remunerated EPI collaborator (3), 2 January 2010

(Approximate translation of e-mail sent in German)

  

I hereby confirm that, in each of the years 2006 and 2007, I received from Mr Denis MacShane 300 Euros for the translation of several texts. The fees arose in connection with the parliamentary work of Denis MacShane. In addition, in 2007 I received 100 euros for communicating with counterparts within the scope of IG Metall[308] and the Frankfurt Book Fair.

  

The total amount of fees amounted to 700 euros.

  

2 January 2010

22.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: E-mail from a remunerated EPI collaborator (4), 10 January 2010

I am happy to confirm that you visited Madrid more than once during the period 2006-08.

  

During these trips, in pursuance of your parliamentary duties and the work of the European Policy Institute, you met local politicians advisers to the Government in Spain and journalists. I helped with some of the organisation but the costs including meals for the guests and travel were all met by the EPI. I would estimate these expenses to be at least €500.

10 January 2010

23.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: E-mail from an EPI contact (1), 29 November 2009

Very sorry to learn that the BNP is attacking you in the run-up to the election. I'm not at all surprised that the far right would seek to grab on to whatever they can to stir up headlines and use the Parliamentary procedures to make life difficult.

  

Here in the States truth is an absolute defense, so would think all the political claims fade as you bring forward the facts to the proper people.

  

I know for myself, as a lifelong American trade unionist and labor rights campaigner, your European Policy Institute work has had great value.

  

Your visits to the US and the briefings you've provided under EPI auspices have helped keep us better informed on trade union developments not only in the UK, but also across Europe. In the old days, of course, unions got a lot of attention from the policy community, academics, and the media. But that's diminished, so your updates for those of us on this side of the pond have been very valuable.

  

I hope the current climate won't diminish your ability through EPI to keep updating us on European trade union issues...I'm still hard at work on the campaigns to win freedom for jailed worker activists in China, Burma, and elsewhere, so info on developments there always is useful.

  

Just wish such human rights work wasn't necessary, but as you and EPI know many of those workers and union activists live in a very harsh world. I'm particularly focused on [name] in Burma at the moment....been jailed since 1997 by the regime there and not in good shape.

  

So just wanted to send an encouraging word in the midst of the current attacks.

  

29 November 2009

24.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: E-mail from an EPI contact (2), 8 December 2009

In thanking you for your attendance and stressing how useful we find it to work with you and the European Policy Institute, I wanted to pass on some of the compliments on your analyses of European politics and policies we received from the corporate leaders who attended our CEO Retreat at [...].

  

"Magisterial" and "masterly" and "extraordinarily well-informed" were just three phrases that stood out from comments on your interventions that came in the reviews of the event.

  

We hope to see you again next June at [our] next CEO Retreat in [...], where EU-Russia relations will be a major theme. Once again, I am confident that the EPI's ability to blend geo-political, economic and European policy perspectives will be of great benefit to our members.

  

8 December 2009

25.  Enclosure to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's letter of 11 January 2010: Note from an EPI contact (3), undated

I'm just getting to that time of year when I start planning for the next term in [...] ( I leave January 4th) and I am wondering how we can build on last year's very successful visit both for the European Policy Institute and yourself. Is there any EPI business bringing you to Washington or indeed anywhere on the East Coast between the New Year and April? I could start working on dates if there is. If not let's have a chat with what would suit best both in terms of your and the EPI's priorities.

26.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 20 January 2010

One of the Spanish researchers/translators I paid using EPI money claimed for my parliamentary work has now sent me this note confirming I paid her €500.[309] She is [name] who works for a major Spanish agency [...]. [Name] interned for me when she was doing a LSE Masters and upon her return to Spain I used her for the services I claimed payment for. She was reluctant to have her name used because like others she does not want to be involved in any publicity but has kindly agreed to send this declaration.

  

A quick translation reads: "Some lines to express appreciation of your work over the last four years in different fora we have provided in Madrid to defend Europe which is necessary and which few other politicians undertake and to which you dedicate time and resources. I appreciate that you have allowed me to collaborate in the Tertualias (UK-Spain Parliamentary annual event) and the money you have paid me (500 Euros)."

  

20 January 2010

27.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 21 January 2010

Thank you for your further letter of 20 January with the email of the same date from your Spanish colleague.[310]

  

I was grateful for this. I will consider it along with your previous letter. I note that you paid this colleague €500 for collaborating in the UK-Spain parliamentary annual event. It is not clear from this what services she provided for this sum or the date of the payment—but if you had both pieces of information, that would be helpful too. I would expect to identify the name of your collaborator in any publication of the evidence which I have received in the course of this inquiry, but if there is a problem with that, please let me know, together with the reasons.[311]

  

Thank you again for your help with this.

  

21 January 2010

28.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 23 January 2010

Thank you for your letter of 21 January.[312] I don't think [name] would have any objections to having her name published if this is necessary. The €500 I paid her was as her note says was for translations as claimed for via the EPI claim against the IEP. Her letter thanks me for allowing her to be involved or collaborate in the preparation of the Tertulias but the payment refers to translation work.

  

23 January 2010

29.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 25 January 2010

This is just to thank you for your letter of 23 January responding to mine of 21 January with the email from your Spanish colleague.[313]

  

I was grateful for confirmation that this was payment for translation work. I asked also about the date; I presume you have no further information to help on that.

  

As I said in my previous letter, I am considering the evidence you have provided and will be back in touch when I have completed my considerations.

  

25 January 2010

30.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 10 February 2010

I have spent a considerable amount of time reviewing the correspondence that we have exchanged over the last eight months and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for the way in which you have conducted your enquiries in relation to the complaint brought against me by [...] Mr Barnbrook. Your conduct and that of your staff has been even handed and exemplary and very fair when I had a difficult period [...].

  

Obtaining documentary evidence for the time frame covered by the complaint has presented me with a number of challenges; it is now very clear to me that my record keeping was totally inadequate and that the management of my financial administration was simply inept. My failure to deal well with my own affairs at that time were undoubtedly compounded by my personal and professional circumstances which were particularly distressing, [...].

  

Upon reflection I can now see quite clearly that with respect to my expenses claims and the reasons for them I could have achieved some of the same aims, in terms of acquiring information to enable me to support my activities as a parliamentarian with considerable expertise in relation to European affairs, if I had simply used the administrative vehicles which were available to all Members of Parliament at the time or discussed with the Fees Office systems to allow me to research and travel in Europe, and I chastise myself every day for failing to do this.

  

I have considered how my actions could be regarded by others, and I could well understand that consideration of just the facts could lead to individuals being highly critical but I did not intend a wrong. In mitigation I can only say that the adequacy of my judgements and the paucity of my administration at the time were very influenced my personal circumstances. My view is that given these facts, and my duty in respect to those who would pass judgement on me it is now only right and proper to repay the sums in question at this time and I enclose a cheque accordingly based on the total amounts claimed minus the invoices I have submitted from collaborators who worked for me.

  

This complaint has given me an opportunity to reflect on what was a very difficult time and to put into place administrative procedures which reflect best practice. I await your report, I thank you once again for your careful consideration.

  

10 February 2010

31.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 11 February 2010

Thank you for your letter of 10 February with which you enclose a cheque for £7,500 made payable to the House of Commons Administration in respect of your claims for work undertaken by the European Policy Institute.[314]

  

I am writing now just to acknowledge your letter and to let you know that I am forwarding your cheque, with a copy of your letter, to the House authorities. I have, as you know, been considering carefully your letter of 11 January[315] and I will now add to that consideration what you say in your latest letter. I will write to you more fully when I have considered what you have said and how best to take this matter forward.

  

Thank you again for writing.

  

11 February 2010

32.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 18 February 2010

Thank you for your letter of 11 January[316] responding to mine of 10 and 23 November[317] about this complaint about your claims against the Incidental Expenses Provision from 2004-05 to 2008-09 in respect of both EPI and computers.

  

I was grateful too for your letters of 20 January[318] and 23 January[319] and for the enclosed email[320] from your Spanish colleague, [name], in respect of a payment to her for €500 to add to the evidence of payments set out in your letter of 11 January.[321] I have also carefully considered your letter of 10 February with which you enclosed a cheque to the House of Commons Administration for £7,500.

  

I was grateful for your letters and recognise the considerable thought you have given to these matters. As you recognise, I do need to have an understanding of the circumstances on which you made your claims in respect of EPI and for your computers.

  

In view of the complexity, I think it would be helpful if I again attempted to summarise what you have told me. That should assist the Department of Resources in advising me on this matter. First, in respect of the 19 claims identified for the work of the European Policy Institute from 2004-05 to 2007-08, I attach a revised version of the payments schedule which takes account of the information you have sent me about the receipt of certain of your payments. In summary:

  

1. The EPI is a loose network of like minded individuals and academics. It has no formal structure and no separate financial structure. You control its bank account.

  

2. In respect of your allowance claims, you had used the name of the Institute to enable you to claim for a range of services and activities, namely: your own travel and accommodation; the purchase by you of books and periodicals; your own research; research papers and translation work commissioned by you and paid for in cash and kind (namely meals); reading and editing the manuscript arising from the Committee of Inquiry into Anti-Semitism; and hospitality and travel costs for EPI contacts, including other politicians, advisers and journalists.

  

3. There is no contemporary record of any of these payments, although five of your contacts have written now with evidence about receiving some of these payments, which were all in cash.

  

4. You considered that it was desirable for you to claim against your Incidental Expenses Provision for these costs since you had been asked to undertake the work by the Prime Minister; it enabled you to pursue your wider European interests; there is no separate provision for such activities; and while you claimed the European Travel Allowance on occasions, it was limited to three trips to European institutions and agencies each year.

  

5. The claims forms you submitted stated that they were for research and translation services — they did not refer to the other costs which were covered by these claims.

  

6. Neither you nor your contacts have records which would enable you confidently to link your claims to specific payments made via the EPI.

  

I would be grateful if you would confirm or amend this summary.

  

Once I am clear about the facts, I would propose to consult the Department of Resources before deciding on how best this matter can be resolved. The question I have to resolve is whether you were in breach of the rules of the House in making these claims. You now consider that you could have achieved some of the same aims in supporting your parliamentary interests in European affairs other than making these claims; you recognize your claims have left you open to criticism, and you have voluntarily made a repayment of £7,500 representing the full sum of your claims for the EPI [£12,900] less, I assume, £5,400, representing the cash payments made to five of your colleagues and confirmed by them.[322]

  

In relation to the nine computers you bought from 2004-05 to 2007-08, I attach a summary of the evidence which you have given me.[323] I should be grateful if you could confirm its accuracy, particularly in relation to your first purchase, where the claim refers to an Asus M5 and your evidence says it was a Sony Vaio. You have also stated that all these computers were necessary for the performance of the parliamentary duties of you and your staff. The two Sony Vaio's which you believe you bought over this period broke down and you have now replaced them with a third (as I understand it). It is not clear whether you still have the computers bought over this period. You cannot now at this remove identify whether any of the computers you now have in your main home and your constituency home, and which have been issued to your staff, are the computers bought over this period or are replacement computers. You bought these additional computers because you were not satisfied with the quality of the computers provided free of charge by the Parliamentary ICT service.

It would be very helpful if you could confirm this summary of your evidence within the next week. I will then consider the next steps. I am grateful for your help in this matter.

33.  Enclosure to the Commissioner's letter of 18 February 2010: Final revised summaries of EPI payments and computer purchases

Payments to the European Policy Institute claimed by Rt Hon Denis MacShane from the IEP
DateSum claimed from IEP Explanation given
2004-05
19.12.04£650.00Final months of 2004: "trip to Madrid and a hotel stay, plus purchase of books and meetings with policy specialists and Spanish parliamentarians. The costs were met from the EPI."
22.1.05£850.00January 2005: Trip to Geneva "using EPI for reimbursement"; report from [name] costing CHF 500.
10.3.05 £850.00 Spring 2005: "I have used the EPI to pay informally for research and translation...  flight and hotel costs" in the spring of 2005, connected with visit to Warsaw. "I asked my network of correspondents to prepare reports on how Britain was seen from the point of view of various European countries....The EPI produced an analysis in different languages as well as a report under my name on the position of Labour's sister parties in the EU."
28.3.05 £550.00
1.4.05£750.00
11.7.05£750.00Summer 2005: "I bought a considerable number of newspapers, magazines and books ... which I used EPI payments to cover. I had research undertaken in different capitals on how they would react to the No from the French and Dutch."
Evidence from collaborators:
2005"I am happy to confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you paid me in cash when we saw each other sums averaging €500 for all the bits and pieces of work - translating, analysing French and international labor politics that you asked me to ahead of your regular visits to France and on the French media to discuss UK and European politics." Letter of 23 December from [name][324]
2005"I confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you have paid me in cash CHF 400 each year ... for translation and help with research on political developments in Switzerland." Letter of 22 December from [name][325]
2005-06
05.08.05 £500.00 See entry for 11.7.05
12.10.05£450.00Autumn 2005: "The Prime Minister asked me to be his envoy to European political parties and personalities ... I could not have undertaken this intense level of work in which up to date knowledge of EU developments and European political affairs (much of it available only in languages which needed translating) without being able to call on the modest sums claimable via the EPI."
9.12.05£550.00One trip to Paris "to talk to editors and French opinion makers about crisis over EU budget". Cost about £350 return plus £20-30 for taxis, and possible hotel costs of €120. One trip to meet editor of Le Monde; travel costs only.
30.01.06£550.002006 "The work as a personal envoy for the PM continued throughout the year." In the first months of 2006 I went to Switzerland twice ... I went to Paris... being informed, briefed and up to date on European political and defence/security matters required intensive research, briefing and translation.
Evidence from collaborators:
2006 "I am happy to confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you paid me in cash when we saw each other sums averaging €500 for all the bits and pieces of work - translating, analysing French and international labor politics that you asked me to ahead of your regular visits to France and on the French media to discuss UK and European politics." Letter of 23 December from [name][326]
2006 "I confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you have paid me in cash CHF 400 each year ... for translation and help with research on political developments in Switzerland." Letter of 22 December from [name][327]
2006 "I hereby confirm that in each of the years 2006 and 2007 I received from Mr Denis MacShane 300 Euros for the translation of various texts. The fees arose in connection with the parliamentary work of Denis MacShane.." Statement of 2 January 2010 from [name][328]
2006 "... you visited Madrid more than once during the period 2006-08... during these trips you met local politicians advisers to the government in Spain and journalists. The costs including meals for the guests and travel were all met by the EPI. I would estimate these expenses to be at least €500." Email of 10 January 2010 from [name][329]
2006-07
13.6.06 £750.00"In March 2006 I went to Berlin I met diplomats and editors and bought €100 worth of books ... Again I used EPI claimed for money to help cover the costs of these trips... I used EPI money claimed in 2006 to help defray costs and to have translations done and buy books in French and German on anti-Semitism."
15.9.06 £750.00"I was chairing the All-Party commission of Enquiry into Anti-Semitism. The autumn of 2006 saw travel to Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and to Berlin to speak on my Commission's report on anti-Semitism. The EPI payments recorded in September, October and November of 2006 helped to cover these costs as well as helping with translation into and from different European languages."
19.10.06 £950.00 See entry for 15.9.06 above
8.11.06 £550.00See entry for 15.9.06 above
29.11.06 £850.00 See entry for 15.9.06 above
19.1.07 £550.00"2007 was more or less the same as the previous two years and two succeeding years in terms of regular visits to different parts of Europe, the purchase of journals and books and organising translations. I was now working actively on combating anti-Semitism at the European level, meeting politicians and researchers on this issue and reading widely which involved buying books which I used money claimed under the EPI heading to pay for."
Evidence from collaborators_:
2006? "You paid me US$950 to read and edit your manuscript of the work on anti-Semitism arising from the Commission of Inquiry into Anti-Semitism you chaired on behalf of the UK Parliament." Letter of December 23 from [name][330]
2007 "I am happy to confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you paid me in cash when we saw each other sums averaging €500 for all the bits and pieces of work - translating, analysing French and international labor politics that you asked me to ahead of your regular visits to France and on the French media to discuss UK and European politics." Letter of 23 December from [name][331]
2007 "I confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you have paid me in cash CHF 400 each year ... for translation and help with research on political developments in Switzerland." Letter of 22 December from [name][332]
2007 "I hereby confirm that in each of the years 2006 and 2007 I received from Mr Denis MacShane 300 Euros for the translation of various texts. The fees arose in connection with the parliamentary work of Denis MacShane. In addition, in 2007 I received 100 Euros for communication with counterparts within the scope of the [Industrial Union of Metalworkers] and the Frankfurt Book Fair. The total amount of fees amounted to 700 Euros." Statement of 2 January 2010 from [name][333]
2007 "... you visited Madrid more than once during the period 2006-08... during these trips you met local politicians advisers to the government in Spain and journalists. The costs including meals for the guests and travel were all met by the EPI. I would estimate these expenses to be at least €500." Email of 10 January 2010 from [name][334]
2007-08
2007: "I was by now actively researching contemporary European anti-Semitism which involved visits to Frankfurt and Grenoble. I was invited by Jacques Delors to join a committee to draw up a short list for the European Book of the Year... there were no funds to cover the costs of travel and staying in Paris for these meetings ... I thought it reasonable to use EPI money to cover these costs."
30.10.07 £850.00
£550.00 "This covers two trips—one to Berlin to keep in touch with political and parliamentary colleagues there. As I recall I went on a fairly cheap flight around the £150 mark but also bought books and informed myself on the German approach to the Lisbon Treaty. On 18 November I made a trip to Paris to interview a set of possible replacement PAs for my parliamentary office. I also paid €100 in cash to EPI collaborator."  
29.11.07
"This covered a pre-Christmas trip to Warsaw to meet EPI collaborators... and hold meetings with Gazeta Wyborcza editor... I paid [a collaborator] €200 and bought [the other] a very large dinner. Again I sought the cheapest possible airfare and stayed with the UK ambassador. The total amount spent was in excess of £600."
04.01.08 £650.00
Evidence from collaborators:
"I am happy to confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you paid me in cash when we saw each other sums averaging €500 for all the bits and pieces of work - translating, analysing French and international labor politics that you asked me to ahead of your regular visits to France and on the French media to discuss UK and European politics." Letter of 23 December from [name][335]
2008
"I confirm that in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 you have paid me in cash CHF 400 each year ... for translation and help with research on political developments in Switzerland." Letter of 22 December from [name][336]
2008
"... you visited Madrid more than once during the period 2006-08... during these trips you met local politicians advisers to the government in Spain and journalists. The costs including meals for the guests and travel were all met by the EPI. I would estimate these expenses to be at least €500." Email of 10 January 2010 from [name][337]
2008
No date given "€500 ...for translations claimed for via the EPI against the IEP". No date given. Letters of 20 and 23 January from Rt Hon Denis MacShane; also email of 20 January from [name] and letter from Mr MacShane of the same date.[338]

Mr MacShane's computer purchases

  

  

Information from claim and supporting documentation Information from Mr MacShane's letter of 19 November 2009[339]
2004-0514.3.05Notebook travel computer Asus M5 lightweight Sony Vaio (laptop) bought for travel use
2005-062.11.05Toshiba Tecra A2 (laptop) computer for MP's new home
28.12.05Fujitsu Amilo (notebook) 'bought for my then PA/intern'
13.2.06constituency computer Packard Bell (desktop?) 'bought to replace the Sony Vaio computer which had broken down'
2006-077.12.06Portable computer [details redacted] 'bought to have a high quality computer in my study in my constituency home'
2007-085.7.07Laptop and programmes: Toshiba A100-02L 'bought for a new researcher'
24.9.07Constituency. Laptop; office sundries. Toshiba Satellite 'bought for [name] my dictation typist'
11.1.08Laptop computer: Toshiba Equium bought for [name], a PA/intern
17.1.08Notebook computer: Toshiba Equium bought for [name], a PA/intern

18 February 2010

34.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 25 February 2010

Thank you for your letter of 18th February which I got on my return to Westminster after the break.[340]

  

I think your summary is a fair one though I suppose the greater details and justification I provided might be adduced in argument. But as a summary it is fair and I would like to thank you and [an official] for the proper, courteous, patient, and reasonable way you have handled this complaint..

  

On the computers I can try and find all these computers scattered around my homes, offices and with colleagues who worked for me. I had always thought an MP could purchase whatever equipment he or she needed up to the IEP limit and he or she was a free agent in terms of these purchases. I assume the Asus computer notebook is correct though I have bought three Sonys in this period so I assumed it was one of them.

  

When I came in in 1994, [a former Member], an old friend said to me: "Denis. You've got to see yourself as a small business. You will get no guidance, no accounts officers, no equipment, no staff, nothing. You have to go out and buy it and sort everything out yourself."

  

I may now wish that I worked as once I did for the BBC or international organisations and whatever I wanted for myself or my department I put in a request and got up-to-date gear.

  

I assumed on all these claims that if the Fees Office thought there was anything amiss or to be questioned then they would let me know and either I would change practice or seek their agreement to be funded for this research work in Europe.

  

The BNP is making hay with their complaint as they have always targeted me on account of my work on Europe and against anti-Semitism. I freely concede that I wish now I had not operated as I did. Or that I had gone and asked the Fees Office for some arrangement to carry on my European work which has been at the centre of my parliamentary existence over the years. Sir Paul Kennedy has just informed that he has decided I should not pay moneys that Sir Thomas Legg asked me to repay in his first findings. But as with that side of the expenses story since the details were published I still wish that MPs had been under more rigorous controls.

  

In that sense, I feel more and more like a character from Koestler's Darkness at Noon who truly believes that what he did was right but finds that a new dispensation obliges him to confess guilt.

  

But to be honest to clear my name I am happy to pay any amount. This process has ruined the last 9 months, allowed endless malicious comments in the local press, and [...]. I hope one way or another it can come to a conclusion.

  

25 February 2010

35.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 1 April 2010

Clearing away papers etc ahead of the election I came across this short book published by the European Policy Institute in 1996.[341] It has been a constant frustration in dealing with your queries that so many documents etc have not been logged or kept. In particular this applies to the EPI which did produce reports and documents steadily in the 1990s and which remains available as a mechanism to publish reports or receive moneys for conferences and travel though as previously indicated to you I accept my errors in respect of claims under question.

  

Anyway, rather than throw some tenuous evidence that the EPI did really exist I enclose a copy of at least one of its publications!

  

1 April 2010

36.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 6 April 2010

Thank you for your letter of 1 April with a copy of your booklet, Britain's Steel Industry in the 21st Century, produced in 1996.[342]

  

I have noted that the booklet bears the imprint: "Epic Books is the publishing division of The European Policy Institute, [address]."

  

As you say, this was in 1996. I hope that I am right in assuming from your letter of 25 February,[343] in which you agreed to the summary which I sent you on 18 February[344], that the European Policy Institute no longer has the structure implied by that imprint. In particular, it no longer has a publishing division and no longer operates out of that or any other postal address. The summary which I sent you on 18 February[345], and to which you agreed, is that the EPI is now a "loose network of likeminded individuals and academics. It has no formal structure and no separate financial structure. You control its bank account." If this assumption is wrong, could you let me know straightaway?

  

It the meantime, I am copying your letter and mine (but not the booklet) to the Department of Resources so that they can take it into account in the advice which, as you will know from my letter of 1 March, I have asked of them.

I will not be able to conclude this inquiry before the dissolution of Parliament. I am writing to you separately about this,[346] but I will resume it once the new Parliament assembles on 18 May.

  

6 April 2010

37.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 9 April 2010

Thank you for your letter of 6 April.[347] I don't think sending you the little book alters in any way the basic assessment you have made. It was just very frustrating that as a hopeless record keeper and someone who files nothing I was unable to show you publications and reports and books that the EPI had produced in order to demonstrate that it was not created simply and solely to claim IEP money. So when, by chance, as I was tidying up some long forgotten papers I came across this book I sent it to you to show that the EPI did exist.

  

But I see no reason for you to alter the description as you have set it down. I hope this is helpful.

  

9 April 2010

38.  Letter to the Director of Operations, Department of Resources, from the Commissioner, 1 March 2010

I would welcome your help on a complaint which I have received against the Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP in respect of expenses he claimed from 2004-05 to 2008-09 from his Incidental Expenses Provision for services provided by the European Policy Institute and for computers.

  

I enclose a copy of the complainant's letter of 7 July 2009;[348] my letter to Mr MacShane of 15 July;[349] Mr MacShane's response of 16 July;[350] my letter to him of 20 July;[351] his response to me of 10 October;[352] my letter to him of 14 October;[353] his response of 29 October with enclosures;[354] my letter to him of 10 November;[355] his response of 19 November;[356] my letter to him of 23 November;[357] his letters to me of 11 and 20 January, 23 January and 10 February;[358] my letter to you of 11 February;[359] my letters to Mr MacShane of 21 January and 18 February;[360] and his e-mail response to me of 25 February.[361]

  

I recognise that there is a lot of correspondence associated with this inquiry so far. Nevertheless, I hope that my letter of 18 February and its attachments,[362] which have been agreed by Mr MacShane, will give you the starting point, with supporting evidence in the previous correspondence.

  

I would be grateful for your comments and advice on this complaint. In particular, it would be helpful to know

  

whether you consider that Mr MacShane's claims against his Incidental Expenses Provision for research and translation carried out by the European Policy Institute (EPI), as set out in subparagraph 1 of my letter to him of 18 February, met the criteria for claims against that allowance. In particular, it would be helpful to have your advice on whether these claims were all permissible, in the light of the information Mr MacShane has provided, including the use of this expenditure for travel and hotel costs by him and others, and its use in relation to the work of the All-Party Committee of Inquiry into Anti-Semitism;

  

whether Mr MacShane's claims for computers over this period were, in your view, within the rules of the House. You will see from his letter to me of 25 February that Mr MacShane is unable to recollect the full details of the nine computer purchases listed by the complainant.[363] It would therefore be helpful if you could supply unredacted copies of the relevant claims and supporting documentation. It would also be helpful to know whether in your view the two claims for £498.95 in January 2008 were likely to have related to separate machines.

  

Finally, I should be grateful for any other information which the Department holds about the EPI, including details of the type and location of its bank account. (Since the Department appears to have made some payments direct to the EPI, I assume that this information was held at the time.)

  

Any other points that you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would be most welcome.

  

I appreciate that it has taken some time to reach this stage, but if you could let me have a response to this within the next three weeks, I, and I know Mr MacShane, would be most grateful.

  

Thank you for your help.

  

1 March 2010

39.  Letter to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources, 29 April 2010

Thank you for your letter to the former Director of Operations of 1st March,[364] and your letters to me of 6 and 12 April.[365]

  

May I deal with the two issues separately?

  

Research services

  

The rules governing the Incidental Expenses Provision (IEP) allowed for claims in respect of "work commissioned and bought in services". This included both research and translation services.

  

Each of Mr MacShane's claims in respect of the European Policy Institute (EPI) was submitted on a C2 direct payment form (the form used in respect of claims from the IEP), with a relevant invoice from EPI attached. On each occasion, the invoice simply stated "Research and translation as requested". There is no record of any discussions between the Department and Mr MacShane regarding either the wording of the invoices or the services that EPI had provided. The Department relied on Members' certification as evidence of their claims' compliance with the House's requirements.

  

In light of the information now provided to you by Mr MacShane, I believe that some of the services provided were not legitimate charges against IEP. Had the services been broken down by type when they were submitted, then travel and accommodation for Mr MacShane, and hospitality and travel costs for EPI contacts, would have been queried and almost certainly disallowed. (There was, of course, provision for extended travel which Mr MacShane may have been able to use for some of his costs).

  

For completeness, I also ought to say that I take it that the reference in your summary of 18th February[366] to Mr MacShane's "own research" is a reference to such things as the purchase of materials needed for research, rather than to any emolument paid to Mr MacShane for his own research work. Any such emolument would not have been allowable.

  

The Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism is a registered All-Party Group (APG).

  

It published a major Report in September 2006, which was the subject of debate in Westminster Hall and which received responses from the Government by means of Command Papers. Mr MacShane chaired the Committee for its inquiry. It seems to me that work in relation to the Committee was entirely properly work in furtherance of parliamentary duties. There was, however, no specific guidance about APGs and expenses before a Practice Note agreed by the Members' Allowances Committee in early 2010 which stated that no more than 25% of the time of an employee paid out of parliamentary expenses should be spent on APG-related activity.

  

I have some concerns about the work which Mr MacShane was asked to undertake by the Prime Minister in 2005-6. If this was work in connection with his parliamentary duties, then it would have been an eligible expense. If, however, it was work for party political purposes, it would not have been eligible, and if it was work for the purposes of Her Majesty's Government, then it might have been more appropriate for the Government to meet the cost.

  

Computer costs

  

A list of computers purchased by Mr MacShane, together with descriptions, is attached. I am also enclosing copies of the unredacted claims in respect of these computers.[367] It appears that the claims on 11 and 17 January 2008 were for the same machine and that Mr MacShane was reimbursed twice for the same cost.

  

It was not the practice of departmental staff when validating claims for IT equipment to revisit previous claims in order to confirm the nature and frequency of earlier, similar purchases nor was it their practice to query whether the equipment was necessary for a Member to carry out his or her parliamentary duties. If such a practice had been in place at the time, I believe that it would have been reasonable at least to have asked Mr MacShane why this level of IT provision, in addition to that provided by PICT, should not be have been regarded as excessive.

  

I can confirm that the Department has no record of any correspondence or other communication with Mr MacShane about his computers.

  

Mr MacShane says in his letter to you of 16 July 2009 that he provided computers to his paid and unpaid staff both in the United Kingdom and abroad.[368] So long as these computers were used only for Mr MacShane's parliamentary purposes, and that value for money was obtained, this would seem to me to be a proper use of allowances.

Please let me know if I can help further.

  

  

29 April 2010

Summary of Computer Purchases claimed by Rt Hon Denis MacShane

Description (from receipt)    Cost (£)  Purchase date  Allowance year  Further details

  

Notebook Travel computer    1,050  11/03/2005  04-05    "Ultaportable laptop"

  

Toshiba Tecra      834.23  02/11/2005  05-06    Laptop

  

Siemens Portable Computer  554.96  28/12/2005  05-06    Laptop

  

Packard Computer    563.97  11/02/2006  05-06    Desk top

  

Sony Portable computer    1,276.59  05/12/2006  06-07    Top of range laptop

  

Toshiba T5300 laptop    611.12  22/06/2007  06-07    Laptop

  

Toshiba laptop      578.99  17/09/2007  07-08    Laptop

  

Toshiba laptop      498.95  31/12/2007  07-08    Laptop

  

29 April 2010

40.  Letter to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources, from the Commissioner, 5 May 2010

Thank you for your letter of 29 April[369] responding to my letters of 1 March,[370] and of 6 and 12 April.[371] I was most grateful for this response.

  

I would be very grateful if you could give me a little more guidance about the Department's practice and policy covering the claims which Mr MacShane made for the European Policy Institute. As you know, Mr MacShane included in these claims the cost of his own international travel and his accommodation abroad. It would be helpful if you could let me know:

  

1. whether it was permissible at the time for Members to claim from their Incidental Expenses Provision for the cost of such travel and subsistence if they did so in support of their parliamentary duties;

  

2. whether they could claim for such costs from their own IEP when those costs were incurred as part of the work of an all-party group.

  

Secondly, it would be helpful to know whether the Department would have considered it acceptable at the time for Members to meet the costs of research and translation services by paying the providers in cash and in hospitality, without invoices or receipts from those providers, as apparently happened in this case.

Thirdly, you will have seen from my letter of 18 February[372] to Mr MacShane summarising his evidence, to which he has agreed, that the European Policy Institute would appear to be a network of likeminded individuals and academics with no formal structure and no separate financial structure. Its bank account would appear to be controlled by Mr MacShane. In the light of that background, it would be helpful to know whether the Department would consider that the nature of EPI as now described makes it a legitimate recipient for funding in response to claims which appear to have been paid out to others. Could you also let me know to which bank account the Department's payments were made in response to Mr MacShane's EPI claims, and whether any were made to his personal bank account?

  

If you could let me have a response to this letter by 24 May, I would be most grateful.

  

5 May 2010

41.  Letter to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources, 13 May 2010

Thank you for your letter of 5th May.[373]

  

It was not permissible for Members to claim for their own international travel and accommodation from the Incidental Expenses Provision even when the costs were incurred in support of their parliamentary duties. These rules applied equally when a Member incurred such costs as part of the work of an all-party group. (Accommodation during trips funded by extended travel could be funded out of IEP, but not accommodation during trips funded by European travel, for which civil service subsistence rate payments could be claimed).

  

Mr MacShane submitted receipts from the European Policy Institute (EPI). The Department would not have had any particular difficulty with EPI paying its own suppliers in cash. If hospitality was a form of remuneration, this would have been unorthodox, and, had the Department known about it, it would have raised queries. If hospitality was not remuneration, it would not have been permitted, whether or not invoices or receipts were provided.

  

If Mr MacShane had absolute control of EPI's finances, that might have made it unwise of him to allow claims to be made against parliamentary allowances in respect of EPI. I am, of course, aware of Sir Thomas Legg's and Sir Paul Kennedy's views on conflicted transactions in the ACA review, and there is an argument that transactions with EPI were similarly conflicted. However, there was no rule which meant that an organisation structured and controlled as EPI was should not be a legitimate recipient of funding, and the Department neither had nor sought information about EPI's internal arrangements.

  

All EPI payments were made to the following bank account:

  

Sort Code  Account Number    Account Name

  

[...]    [...]      European Policy Institute

  

The invoice address was [address in London SW6].

  

No payments were made to Mr MacShane's personal bank account.

  

Please let me know if I can help further.

13 May 2010

42.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 18 May 2010

Now that the new Parliament has assembled, I have resumed work on my inquiries into this complaint. This letter is to let you have copies of my correspondence with the Department of Resources.

  

I enclose a copy of my letters to the Department of 1 March[374] and 6 and 12 April.[375] I enclose also a copy of the Department's initial reply of 29 April;[376] my letter to them of 5 May;[377] and their response of 13 May to that letter.[378]

  

As you will see, the Department addressed both your EPI claims and your claims for computers. I do not propose, however, to ask you in this letter to respond to their views on the computer purchases, since I am currently seeking some further information from the House authorities about the computers which were available to you, and I will come back to you on the computer purchases when I receive their response.

  

In respect of your claims for the European Policy Institute, you will see that, in the Department's view, some of the services provided were not legitimate claims against the IEP. In particular, it was not within the rules for you to have claimed for travel and subsistence from the EPI on your own behalf or when you were acting as part of an all-party parliamentary group. In the Department's view, it would have been acceptable for EPI to have paid its researchers in cash. It would not have been acceptable for you to have claimed for hospitality unless it was remuneration for services rendered, and, even then, they would have raised questions with you had they known about it. The Department note that if, as I understand to be the position, you had absolute control of the EPI's finances, and allowed claims to be made against parliamentary allowances in respect of the EPI, such transactions might have been unwise. There is also an argument that such transactions were conflicted. The Department note, however, that in their view there was no rule that meant that an organisation structured and controlled as was EPI should not have been a legitimate recipient of funding.

  

I will need myself to come to a view on these matters, including whether your claims on behalf of EPI met the Speaker's injunction that Members' use of allowances should be above reproach.

  

I would, therefore, welcome your comments on the Department's advice. It would be helpful also, in the light of that advice, if you could help me on the following three points:

  

Was the hospitality you gave part of the remuneration of those who provided you with research and translation services? If so, can you explain whether the arrangement was agreed in advance, and how you identified the value of the hospitality to be offered?

  

When you provided that hospitality, did you meet the cost of your own meals out of the funds you claimed from the EPI, or did you pay separately for your own food and any drink?

  

Given your evidence that the EPI did not have an office or structure during the period covered by this inquiry, could you help me on who was at the Hammersmith address ([address] from which the invoices were sent; and who raised and authorised each of the invoices?

  

I will be back in touch again to consult you about the computer matters, but I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks. I am hopeful that, subject to your reply and clearing up any points on the computers, it will be possible then for me to bring this inquiry to a resolution. I am grateful for your continued help with this.

  

18 May 2010

43.  Letter to the Director of Operations and Member Services, Parliamentary ICT Service, from the Commissioner, 11 May 2010

I would welcome your help on a complaint which I have received against the Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP in respect of expenses he claimed from his Incidental Expenses Provision to buy computers.

  

I would be very grateful if you would let me have details of any computers which Mr MacShane borrowed or purchased from the House during the period covered by the complaint, which is from 2004-05 to 2008-09. If you had any other relevant information, including information about any computers held or used by Mr MacShane at the opening of this period, that would also be most welcome.

  

If it were possible to let me have a reply by the end of the month, I should be very grateful. Thank you for your help.

  

11 May 2010

44.  E-mail to the Commissioner from the Director of Operations and Member Services, Parliamentary ICT Service, 18 May 2010

You wrote to me asking of the IT records relating to the Mr MacShane. Please find these attached.[379]

  

If I can be of any further assistance please ask.

  

18 May 2010

45.  Enclosure to the Director of Operations and Member Services, Parliamentary ICT Service's e-mail of 18 May 2010: Extract from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's IT records
Order dateEquipment type ModelLocation
23 June 2006Laptop D610Westminster
23 June 2006Printer 5110cnConstituency
23 June 2006PC GX520Constituency
23 June 2006Monitor 1704FPTConstituency
23 June 2006Laptop D610Constituency
23 June 2006Printer 5110cnWestminster
23 June 2006PC GX520Westminster
23 June 2006Monitor 1704FPTWestminster
23 June 2006Laptop D610Westminster
25 July 2006PC GX520Westminster
25 July 2006Monitor 1707FPTWestminster

Parliamentary ICT

May 2010

46.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 20 May 2010

When I wrote to you on 18 May[380] I said that I had asked the House authorities for information about the computers which were available to you in the period covered by the complaint, and that I would write to you again when I received their response.

  

I have now received that information. I enclose a copy of my letter of 11 May to the Director of Operations and Member Services in the Parliamentary ICT service,[381] his emailed response of 18 May, together with a list of the centrally-provided computer equipment which you received in 2006,[382] a further copy of my letter of 1 March to the Department of Resources,[383] and their response of 29 April with your unredacted claims for computers in the years from 2004-05 to 2007-08.[384]

  

I enclose a schedule[385] which summarises your computer provision from both PICT and IEP. As you will see, it shows that you received 14 computers from 2004-05 to 2007-08. The computers seem to have been allocated as follows:

  

  • constituency—six computers provided between February 2006 and September 2007, namely two PCs and four laptops;
  • Westminster—four computers provided in June and July 2006, namely two PCs and two laptops;
  • unspecified—two notebooks bought in March and December 2005: one laptop (for "new home") in November 2005 and a further laptop bought in December 2007.

  

You said in your letter of 10 October that two lightweight travel computers broke down and had to be replaced.[386] It seems that, according to your evidence, one was replaced by a PC bought in February 2006 (although there is no record of it being, as suggested in the list attached to your letter of 29 October, a Sony Vaio). You have not identified which other laptop broke and was replaced. In any event, taking account of the two breakages, it would seem that you had available at any one time over the period up to 12 computers (four PCs and eight laptops/notebooks)—broadly spread between six computers in your constituency, four in Westminster and two for travelling.

  

In the light of this, I would be grateful if you could:

  

1.  confirm or revise this summary of the purchase and use of your computers;

  

2.  let me know how many parliamentary staff you employed at any one time from 2004-05 to 2007-08, divided between Westminster and your constituency;

  

3.  confirm that each member of staff, including interns, passed on their computer to any successor when they left your office;

  

4.  confirm that the Sony laptop you bought VAT-free in Heathrow on 5 December 2006 returned with you to your constituency home, as suggested in your letter of 29 October;[387]

  

5.  let me know whether you accept that you claimed twice for the £498.95 Toshiba laptop which you bought in Fulham on 31 December 2007, and, if so, how this mistake occurred.

  

In the light of your response, I will need to consider whether the computers you bought in addition to the PICT provision you ordered were costs which were wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in your Parliamentary duties.

  

It would be most helpful to have a response to this letter by 9 June.

  

20 May 2010

  

  

47.  Consolidated summary of Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP's computer acquisitions, 20 May 2010
Rt Hon Denis MacShane: computer acquisitions   
Financial yearCost Date of claimInformation from claim and supporting documentation (or, for centrally provided computers, from PICT) Information from Member's letter of 29.10.09 (where applicable) Destination (from claim and supporting documentation - or, for centrally provided computers, from PICT) Other comments
2004-05£1,050.00 14.3.05Notebook travel computer Asus M5 'lightweight Sony Vaio (laptop) bought for travel use' Not specifiedBought in Tottenham Ct Road and claimed against IEP
         
2005-06£834.23 2.11.05Toshiba Tecra A2 (laptop) computer for MP's new homeMember's home 1 yr warranty. Bought in New Oxford St and claimed against IEP
 £554.96 28.12.05Fujitsu amilo (notebook) 'bought for my then PA/intern, [name]' Not specifiedBought in Fulham and claimed against IEP
 £563.97 13.2.06constituency computer Packard Bell (desktop) 'bought to replace the Sony Vaio computer which had broken down' ConstituencyBought in Meadowhall and claimed against IEP
         
2006-07 23.6.06 Laptopn/aWestminster Centrally provided
  23.6.06 PCn/aConstituency Centrally provided
  23.6.06 Laptopn/aConstituency Centrally provided
  23.6.06 PCn/aWestminster Centrally provided
  23.6.06 Laptopn/aWestminster Centrally provided
  25.7.06 PCn/aWestminster Centrally provided
 £1,276.59 7.12.06port.computer Sony TX3HP 1300 'bought to have a high quality computer in my study in my constituency home' Member's constituency homeBought in Heathrow and claimed against IEP
         
2007-08£611.12 5.7.07Constit.laptop and programmes: Toshiba A100-02L 'bought for a new researcher', [name] ConstituencyBought in London? and claimed against IEP
 £578.99 24.9.07constit. Laptop; office sundries. Toshiba Satellite 'bought for … my dictation typist' ConstituencyBought in Rotherham and claimed against IEP. Also bought dictation machine
 £498.95 11.1.08Laptop computer: Toshiba Equium 'bought for ...a PA/intern, [name]'Not specified Bought in Fulham and claimed against IEP
 £498.95 17.1.08Notebook computer: Toshiba Equium 'bought for ...a PA/intern, [name]'Not specified Bought in Fulham and claimed against IEP. DOR believes this was duplicate claim.

Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

20 May 2010

48.  Letter to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources, from the Commissioner, 17 May 2010

Thank you for your letter of 13 May[388] responding to mine of 5 May[389] seeking further advice on this complaint against Mr Denis MacShane MP.

  

I was most grateful for this response. I will be showing our correspondence to Mr MacShane and inviting his comments on it. In the meantime, it would be very helpful if you could let me have the unredacted copies of the relevant claim forms and invoices from 2004-05 to 2007-08.

  

Thank you for your help.

  

17 May 2010

49.  Redacted example of an EPI invoice, dated 11 July 2005, from the 19 invoices provided by the Director of Strategic Projects on 25 May 2010

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

50.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 27 May 2010

I wrote to you on 18 May to show you the advice I had received from the Department of Resources in respect of claims which are the subject of this complaint and asked some questions in relation to the EPI from that advice.[390] I wrote to you separately on 20 May about your computer claims.[391]

  

I am writing to you now because, following the Department's letter to me of 13 May, [392] I asked them to send me the unredacted invoices for your EPI claims in 2005 and 2006.[393] I attach a copy of my letter to them of 17 May[394] and the Department's response of 25 May with the relevant claims and invoices.[395]

  

As you will see, the invoices are all presented for work on: "research and translation," although one invoice describes the work as "research and communications work" and another as "research and translation consultancy." Work is described either as "as agreed" or "as requested." As well as the office address referred to in the Department's response, the invoices are all presented and signed [name]. The invoice footer identifies [name] as the General Manager. It identifies [name] as Acting Director and identifies four Associate Directors one in Geneva, two in Washington and one without a location. You enclosed correspondence from three of these with your letter to me of 11 January.[396]

  

I am having some difficulty in reconciling the information on the invoices with the information which you have so far provided. You had agreed as a summary of your evidence that EPI had no formal structure, no separate financial structure and that you controlled its bank account (my letter to you of 18 February[397] confirmed by your letter to me of 25 February[398]). The invoices, however, suggest that as well as an office address, there was a General Manager who was responsible for signing the invoices, an Acting Director, and four Associate Directors. Could you help me on the role, responsibilities, and identities of the General Manager, Acting Director and Associate Directors identified on the invoices? Could you also give me the current postal addresses of the General Manager and the Acting Director so that I can take evidence from them about the work of the EPI and, in particular, about the invoices which the General Manager presented to you? Finally, it would be helpful to know for how long EPI has been based at these premises, and whether they were a business address of your brother, as suggested in your letter to me of 29 October.[399]

  

You may wish to respond to this letter at the same time you respond to my letter of 18 May.[400] If so, I would be grateful if you could let me have a response by 9 June. Thank you for your help.

  

27 May 2010

51.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 15 June 2010

Thank you for your letters of 18th, 20th and 27th May.[401] I am sorry to be late in replying but I have been on the road a great deal of time and setting up new office arrangements here and in the constituency have taken a great deal of time.

  

I hope the letter below answers your queries on both the EPI and computers in as much as I can respond to your detailed questions. As have previously written to you I accept that errors were made but they were mistakes based on an over-enthusiastic zeal to carry out my parliamentary work on European affairs.

EPI

  

As you yourself wrote to me on 18th February "The EPI is a loose network ...It has no formal structure and no separate financial structures. You control the bank account."[402]

  

That is the case. The letterheads used to claim for reimbursement which as I have argued I believed were legitimate in order to carry out or commission research in the fields of parliamentary work in which I specialise (though as my letter of 10 February 2010 made clear I now accept that my approach is indeed open to question and reproach) date back from the 1990s when I was working in Geneva and set up the EPI. The names at the bottom of the letterhead were friends and associates at the time. The titles were simply on the letterhead to make it look more official. At the time I asked my brother if I could use a business address of his though any payments were made by BACS so the address fell into disuse. There is no office nor has there ever been any employed salaried staff. I have never been to the address [...].

  

As I stressed in previous letters and when we met [my brother] has no involvement in, responsibility for, payments from or is in any way connected to the EPI. He was extremely concerned, as was I, at the Mail on Sunday on Sunday story and the efforts by the paper's reporters to approach him and his family in their usual intrusive manner. [...] he is rightly anxious not to be linked in any way to this inquiry. [...] but I repeat as I made clear in letters to you and in an informal meeting as well as over the phone the EPI did not involve him in any way.

  

As previously explained I used the EPI as a means to recoup expenses that I paid out for the research I carried out by travelling in Europe to sustain my parliamentary work on European issues. As I wrote in The Times on last Friday "To be on top of what is going on in Europe, I go there a lot. One visit and talk to European politicians is worth reading a dozen articles back in London. So, of late, I have been in Paris, Riga, Cracow. Naples, Madrid and Brussels for brief in-and-out trips."

  

Thus on my travels to carry out research I would have paid for a drink, a coffee or the odd meal for people I met for the purposes of continually updating my parliamentary knowledge on European affairs. As I have told you in the past I have no detailed invoices such as you suggest in sub-para 1 of your letter of 18th May. Nor did I make any agreement or specific arrangements about hospitality. I visited. I met. I stayed overnight. I bought books and magazines in foreign languages. In the UK this would have been met by extended travel, or by sending in individual bills for books or newspaper/magazine subscriptions.

  

The Fees Office always met reasonable requests in that regard. In my interpretation of what I considered to be research on my main area of parliamentary work and for ease of administration I submitted EPI bills which covered what I considered to be what I had disbursed in the period concerned. The invoices were pro-forma on my computer with just the amount varying according to what I judged to have expended. Again I stress my sole responsibility based on my interpretation of the rules and my belief that carrying out this research in Europe added value to my role as an MP specialising in European affairs.

  

I discussed with [name of official], UK Representative to the EU, last week, the decision of the then Prime Minister to ask me to report directly to him via [name of official] on EU politics but that there is no provision in Government to pay anyone to do this work. "You are right on both counts. Denis. The PM and we valued your work and information but of course we couldn't pay anything to your costs," he said. I asked [name of official] to send a note you to that effect—which he agreed to do subject to clearance from the FCO PUS.[403] I genuinely believed that as an MP what I was doing was of value to public service even if as I now accept and [the Director of Strategic Projects] makes clear that I may have cut corners.

  

Computers

  

On computers I have tracked down one in Rotherham which was not thrown away and I have brought it down to London. There may be others gathering dust somewhere but I have never paid much attention to matériel. I have always just bought what was needed when it was needed within the limits of the IEP allowances -bearing in mind I was not claiming rent for an office in my constituency so I felt relaxed about buying kit.

  

I have bought a great deal of kit - printers, mobile phones, Palms, mobile phones, scanners, collating machines, fax machines, cameras etc - which I have replaced, thrown away, or stopped using as new models have come along. I had an extensive network of interns - not employed staff - in the period when I stopped being a minister and if they needed a cheap and cheerful computer I just bought a new one much as I would buy any other bit of kit that I needed for the office. They are scattered to the four winds in America and Europe.

  

The computers offered by PICT quickly became out-dated -- they had no wi-fi function for example and PICT while being very helpful in certain regards were not able to upgrade computers so it was easier to go to PC World and get what I needed to do my parliamentary work.

  

In respect of your letter of 20 May on computers I have no reason to object to your summary as I genuinely cannot remember why or when I purchased any bit of office kit in the 16 years I have been an MP.[404] I have had at any one between 3 and 5 people paid as full or part-time staff with one dictation typist part-time in Rotherham and usually one or two interns in my Westminster office. I had complaints from staff about slowness of some computers especially with the bigger programmes for case-work, web-sites, design and so forth so just said "Let's get a new one." The 2006 Vaio was a light-weight one that stayed with me in my brief-case until it broke down and was not repairable. If I claimed twice for the same computer bought 31 December 2007 that was clearly a mistake though I am surprised the Fees Office did not notice it.

  

My paperwork is useless -- as I write I have piles of papers left and right including all the post-election bills which a kind gentleman from Ipsa will I hope help to put through the system tomorrow when he comes to my office. I am the world's worst keeper of bills, invoices, papers etc and am constantly forgetting either to claim payments I am entitled to or make payments I should pay. If you come to my office you will see you are dealing with someone who has very poor paper organisation skills and no book-keeping ability.

  

I remain conscious that I may have gone beyond what is permitted or inferred in the previous Green Book. I have made some rectification and am willing to make more if required. This [...] complaint has been hanging over my head for a year now and was turned into political capital during the election campaign. I am anxious for it to come to a conclusion and am grateful to you and to [name of official] for the thorough but very fair manner with which you have conducted the inquiry. I am ready to come for a further informal meeting if there are any points you feel need clarification. As evidence of my continuing parliamentary engagement in European and international matters I enclose some recent interventions.[405] I do so to underline that this activity is my parliamentary life and the claims I made were not for personal gain but to discharge my duties as I saw fit.

15 June 2010

52.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 30 June 2010

Thank you for your letter of 15 June[406] responding to my letters to you of 18, 20 and 27 May about this complaint.[407]

  

I was most grateful for this response. In respect of EPI, I have noted that the invoices which were produced were on old letterheads. My understanding of what you have told me is that at the time you submitted these invoices the structure of EPI as suggested by the notepaper was no longer extant, and that EPI had never used the address given for the business. You prepared the invoices using a proforma on your computer. Each of these invoices is addressed to you and apparently submitted by "[name]" who has signed each invoice in manuscript. He was listed on the bottom of the invoice as General Manager. Could you let me know who signed these invoices? And could you give me their address so that I can take evidence from them?

  

In respect of the questions I asked you about the hospitality funded by your EPI claims, I take it that the hospitality was not a part of the remuneration offered for those who undertook any research or translation work for you. The cost of such hospitality, and the cost of your own meal and any drinks, was met from claims you made through the EPI invoices for research and translation. If this is wrong, please let me know.

  

Turning to your response on computers, it was helpful to know that you are content with my summary. It would appear that at any one time you had some four computers in Westminster for use by yourself and between one and two interns. Would you kindly confirm that? I take it also that when the interns left, they took with them the laptops or notebooks which you had provided which are now "scattered to the four winds in America and Europe", and that the Sony laptop bought in Heathrow on 5 December 2006 travelled with you in your briefcase until it ceased to work. If any of this is wrong, please let me know.

  

You have sent me a little over a hundred pages taken from your website to illustrate your continuing interest in European and international matters. I do not propose to enter that into the evidence for this inquiry, but if there is any particular item which you consider I ought to reflect in the evidence, please let me know.

  

I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks. I will then review all the evidence. At this stage I am minded to prepare a memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on this matter, although you should draw no inferences from that. Having reviewed the evidence, I will come to a view on whether it would be helpful in bringing this matter to a conclusion for us to meet for a formal interview. I appreciate that this has taken a long time, but I know you will recognize that it has not been altogether straightforward to identify the facts in relation to the claims which are the subject of this complaint. I do recognise the pressure this has put on you and I am grateful for the help you have continued to give me despite the difficulties with your own records.

  

Finally, if you wish to make any comments on the advice given by the Department of Resources, as set out in my letter of 18 May, they would be very welcome.[408]

  

30 June 2010

53.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 22 July 2010

Thank you for your two further letters. I am sorry to be late in replying but in addition to a parliamentary trip to the US, I have [...] That plus almost daily struggle with Ipsa to get any payment (so far unsuccessfully) for any bills since the election has left me behind on all correspondence.

  

As I have tried to explain I have been and remain heavily involved in European political issues as my main parliamentary speciality. [Name of former Member] once remarked that an MP who could not get to speak at any meeting in Britain by using the Extended Travel Scheme to cover the costs was not worthy of the job.

  

Today that creative interpretation of parliamentary expenses would be found shocking and to be condemned. I fear I am of the [name of former Member] school. I carefully husbanded my IEP payments — principally by not charging any rent for my constituency office — so that I could use the EPI as a vehicle to cover the costs of my European work as outlined in some detail in previous letters.

  

Today it was announced that [a Member of Parliament] would fly with the Foreign Secretary to India. I am not sure if [name of Member] will be paying the full costs of his travel as I was expected to cover my costs when the then Prime Minister asked me to be his special envoy to the EU which work and travel was covered in part by EPI claims. I was discussing this yesterday with [a Member of Parliament] whose travel and work on Afghanistan has led to some reshaping of HMG strategy. [Name of Member]said he had paid £12,000 from his own pocket even though his travels there have been poured into a series of important Commons interventions on the issue. I also went to Afghanistan in 2008 and paid for my own fare to Kabul even if my only reason for going there was to be able better to contribute to Parliamentary debate as I have done on this subject.

  

Thus this [...] complaint has to be set in the context of how MPs are to undertake work which is not formally covered by a budget line. As I have said I and I alone take full responsibility for all payments and claims made by the EPI as a vehicle. My staff scrawl my name for me regularly on letters and the reference to [name] is to a similarly scrawled nom de plume. It was once used by my brother who allowed me to use his London office address as a kind of poste restante when the EPI was set up in the 1990s. But as I have also said my brother has no involvement with or knowledge of the EPI for more than a decade [...].

  

As I was trying to explain how I carried out my European political and parliamentary work in the period covered I explained that I had a network of collaborators who helped with research, translation and networking. I either paid them specific fees some of which have been forwarded to you or bought meals and drinks as one would with any such group of co-workers. There is no list of restaurant or bar receipts and since I eat and live modestly and do not frequent expensive restaurants I doubt if it comes to very much. I appreciate you would be more comfortable with a detailed set of receipts etc, and with the benefit of hindsight so would I. With the benefit of hindsight I almost certainly should not have used the EPI as a vehicle to cover costs of working on European affairs and with the benefit of hindsight [name of former Member] should never have used extended travel to cover costs of going to political meetings in the UK. But then my interest and I hope useful Parliamentary work on Europe would not have been able to be developed as it was after I stood down as a Minister in 2005.

  

On [the Director of Strategic Projects'] comments of course I accept them. I did not say I claimed for an All-Party Parliamentary Group's work. I have never done so. He is confusing this with the Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry Into Antisemitism (not the same as an APPG) which I chaired and which reported in 2007 and then was dissolved. I have since taking a lead as an MP speaking in the Commons and public on the scourge of neo-antisemitism and helped set up the International Parliamentary Coalition Against Antisemitism. Some of my travel to Europe also involved meetings with fellow parliamentarians and others involved in this aspect of work and I did feel it reasonable, given the way I controlled my IEP costs, to allow EPI claims to cover some of this work. I am also one of Parliament's strongest critics of the BNP's anti-semitic history and ideology. I enclose an extract from a book I published in 2008 [...] So part of all my expenses claimed in the period under review were in connection with parliamentary work on antisemitism, including EPI money, but they were not as [the Director of Strategic Projects] suggests in connection with a registered APPG.

  

On computers as I write there are five in my office in the Commons with others at homes in London and Rotherham and in the constituency office. Looking through old notebooks I noticed I had an intern from the US in 2005/06. Did I provide him with a computer to do work? I cannot remember. Anymore than I can remember the printers, cameras, mobile phones, photo-copiers, scanners, TVs, furniture, and other bits and pieces of kit I bought. I am currently seeking to replace my London home computer with one that can do Skype (if I can get anyone from Ipsa to talk to me!) so as to reduce bills for calls abroad. I just bought kit as and when it was needed. [The complainant] has focussed on computers but he might just as easily have listed every other bit of equipment on the expense forms submitted to the Department of Resources for the period under question. I can go and find all these computers or equivalents and bring them to you if you really want me to. On this as on all other aspects of this procedure I accept full responsibility for what I spent and what I claimed. I have been a hard-working MP with a passion for European affairs and with no interest or ability in being an office manager. I had a variety of researchers, interns, co-workers and simply provided them with computers and any other kit as when it was needed to work both in my tiny office in the Commons or elsewhere as was most appropriate. I wish the Department of Resources had challenged any of these claims in the period concerned and I could have had a discussion with them. Had this happened this whole business might have been avoided. One or two claims I submitted were rejected and I accepted their decision as final. I have not sought to duck my responsibility or regret that my interpretation of what could be claimed is now under challenge and I have tried to show that with the restitution payment I have made.

  

I was required by the Legg Committee to pay back £1,300 and Sir Paul Kennedy not only upheld my appeal on other Legg demands but wrote to me to state that I had underclaimed certain ACA expenses. The sums other colleagues were required to pay back are much greater than the totality of the EPI claims all of which were submitted in connection with my parliamentary and MP's work linked to my special interest of European affairs.

  

I appreciate we are all going on the August break now but this has been hanging over my head for 15 months [...] as I keep asking myself if I am a crook and why my work on Europe and antisemitism requires such investigation. I accept fully there was a conflict in the strict interpretation of what might be claimed and I regret that. But I am not going to resile from my commitment to what parliamentary and political work I have undertaken in this period even if the method of being reimbursed for part of it is open to question.

On the issue of material sent to you that was just to show the continuing range of work on European affairs partly covered by EPI payment. I think you have the picture now and if this is to be considered by the new Standards and Privileges Committee whenever it is formed. I don't doubt that colleagues there will be aware of my commitment to and interest in European political issues as they impact on our country.

  

22 July 2010

54.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 9 August 2010

Thank you for your letter of 22 July responding to my previous correspondence.[409] You refer to your letter as being in response to two of my letters, but from what I can see, the outstanding letter to which yours is the response is my letter to you of 30 June.[410]

  

I was most grateful for this response. It would appear from what you say that members of your staff regularly signed invoices on outdated EPI notepaper, not using their own name but the name [which] appears on the notepaper as the General Manager of EPI. The invoices purport to have been signed by [name], when it would appear from your evidence that they were not so signed. In the light of this, I would be grateful to know:

  

1.  if you instructed members of your staff to sign in this way, and if so why such instructions were given;

  

2.  why the name of "[name]" was used, and if there was such a person acting as "General Manager" of the EPI;

  

3.  whether "[name]" is in fact your brother, or some other person;

  

4.  your reasons for using notepaper which referred to an address which you have described as having fallen "into disuse".

  

I understand from your letter of 22 July[411] and your earlier letter of 29 October 2009[412] that your brother has never had any direct active part in the work of EPI, whether as General Manager or anything else. His only involvement, as I understand it, was to let you use one of his London business addresses to receive mail.

  

I have noted what you say about computers. Could you just confirm that, as suggested in my letter to you of 30 June, interns were able to take the parliamentary-funded laptops with them, and did so, when they left your office?[413]

  

I appreciate that this inquiry has gone on far longer than either of us would have wished. I am keen to bring this to a conclusion. But you will appreciate, I am sure, the implications of the invoices which you submitted for your EPI claims, and I do need to explore these further before I can decide how best to conclude my inquiry.

  

I recognise that we are now in the recess, and I am sorry to hear about [...], but I hope you might let me have a response to this letter by the end of August.

  

9 August 2010

55.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 14 September 2010

Thank you for your letter of 9 August and I apologise for delays and the necessity of [name of official] to call me.[414] [...] Indeed the nightmare of coming to terms with Ipsa and sorting out new arrangements for so many aspects of one's life under the new regime consumes an intense amount of time. This combined with regular attendance in the Chamber has delayed this response. I still cannot fully understand how the BNP can oblige part of the parliamentary system to submit an MP to more than 15 months of investigation which has been a cause of very great strain, [...], and stress about my good name as a Parliamentarian active on European affairs and in combating anti-semitism which has made me a target [...].[415]

  

On your questions, I do not know if there is much I can add to previous correspondence. Obviously I take full responsibility for all claims made to the Fees Office. I would invite you to come and spend time with me and see how chaotic my office and work is as I try to keep abreast of all the demands made on my time particularly with reference to my European parliamentary and political work. I am not a civil servant working 9-5 in a structured system with specialists handling finance, travel, engagement in Europe, or personnel questions. In the period concerned I was coping with [...] and still trying to discharge my European parliamentary/political work as set out to you in previous communications since the BNP sent in its complaint.[416] I have had a flow of interns and assistants in my office. They took charge of many aspects of my work, booking travel, sending out invoices for payments, and helping with HoC form filling. I have always allowed others - staff, family, etc - to sign or pp my name. But I take responsibility.

  

I carefully husbanded my allowance - principally by not charging the Commons any rent for my constituency office - so that I would have part of the allowance to use on my European work. I used the EPI as a convenient vehicle. Since its inception before I became an MP. The EPI is a loose network. There is no office, no staff, and just a post-box address. My brother is not involved in any way [...] So please do not bring my brother into this.

  

The letter-head has remained unchanged over 20 years. [The name on the invoices] as I have previously explained is a nom de plume used over the years to cover expense claims and payments from the EPI. The EPI has published books, reports, organised conferences and is used by its network as and when appropriate. As I have explained I used the EPI to claim reimbursement from the Fees Office. An MP is allowed extended travel to carry out similar travel, attend conferences, carry out research, and stay overnight in the UK but there is no equivalent system for European work beyond three heavily circumscribed trips which I preferred not to claim as they were always held up to press opprobrium when published. I could have submitted all the individual payments to EPI collaborators on individual invoices but since I was operating within the limits of my allowance it was just easier to submit periodic claims and use that money for reimbursement. I fully accept that this approach is open to criticism and is part of the overall problem of covering MPs' costs which have given rise to all the new rules. I have sought as an indication of my acceptance of this to repay £7,500 even though I am satisfied in my own mind that all EPI claimed money were in pursuit of my work as an elected parliamentarian who specialises in Europe.

  

On the computer question as I think I have previously written I am happy to hunt down any computer you would like me to return. I bought different bits of kit as and when needed. These include computers and other more expensive pieces of electronic and communication/printing equipment. For some reason [the complainant] has only chosen to list the computers. So if it helps I can find the computers you wish me to return and deliver them to your office. I have two, possibly three new interns coming into my Parliamentary office this month so will again be having to provide computers etc for them. I have had no new computers from the Commons system since 2005 and laptops etc quickly get out of date. Again I used my allocated OCA office to buy what I needed when I needed it.

  

Finally, can I make clear that I always accepted any ruling from the Fees Office which challenged any claim I made. Had the Fees Office called me in on either EPI or computer claims I would have explained my position but accepted their decisions. I work very long days, weekends on my parliamentary/political/constituency work and have never had time for precise clerical book-keeping. I feel it is somewhat unfair to apply retrospectively today's more rigorous (moralistic?) norms on what MPs can and cannot claim to carry out their duties as they see them. If MPs cannot undertake European work then our debates in the Commons given our membership of the European Union and its influence on public policy will be all the poorer.

  

14 September 2010

56.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 16 December 2010

You will recall that I wrote to you on the 10th February 2010 concerning the complaint by [...] Mr Barnbrook and your investigation into my expenses claim.[417] In that letter I enclosed a cheque returning the monies that I had claimed in respect of the European Policy Institute invoice for which I did not have supporting documentation covering the claims.

  

Since then, you have continued your investigation. I have been aware of the approach that you have adopted in relation to expenses claims generally and your interpretation, and that of other authorities within the House, of the application of the expenses provisions. In hindsight, I can now see that your approach to the interpretation of the rules is the proper one, given the recent intense scrutiny of the expenses and allowance scheme. Although I believed (based on advice from other senior colleagues) that I was making claims using a system and on a basis then accepted by the Fees Office and the House administration, I now see that the method of claiming through the EPI invoices was inappropriate.

  

I am now enclosing a further cheque of £5,400, the full cost of the European Policy Institute claims over the period and which had been complained about.

  

16 December 2010

57.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 4 July 2012

I am writing to let you know that, having been informed by the Metropolitan Police that they have decided to take no further action in respect of their investigation, I am now resuming the inquiry which, with the agreement of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, I suspended following the publication of its 1st Special Report of Session 2010-2011 on 14 October 2010. I informed you of this in my letter to you of 12 October.[418]

  

I believe that it should be possible to bring this inquiry to an early conclusion since you have provided me with very full information during the course of my inquiry. I would propose, therefore, to move to arranging an interview with you so that we can discuss the issues which arise in relation to the complaint as it affects the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament and its associated rules, in this case the relevant Green Book rules. I would write to you before we met to let you know more about the procedure and the areas which I suggest we cover. Subject to that interview, I would then prepare a memorandum on the complaint to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. In accordance with my normal procedure, I would show you the [factual] sections of that memorandum for any comments you may wish to make on their factual accuracy.

  

As you know, the essence of this complaint is that the costs you claimed against the Incidental Expenses Provision for your constituency office and certain office services and equipment were not wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred on your parliamentary duties, contrary to the rules of the House.

  

Before taking this further I think it would be right to give you an opportunity to let me know whether you have any additional information you wish to give me in relation to this complaint. If you have any such information, it would be helpful to know whether this in your view adds to or modifies the extensive evidence you have already helpfully given me.

  

It would be very helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next three weeks. If it would be helpful, I would of course be very happy to see you here at the House to discuss further the process necessary to bring this matter to a conclusion.

  

I am writing to the complainant to let him know that I have resumed this inquiry.[419]

  

4 July 2012

58.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 30 July 2012

I wrote to you on 4 July to let you know that I was resuming my inquiry into this complaint.[420] I invited you to let me have any additional information you wished to give me in relation to this complaint within the following three weeks, before I brought my inquiry to a conclusion through us meeting for an interview.

  

I received no response to this letter and my office, therefore, spoke to you on 30 July. I understand that you told my office that you were acting through your lawyer, and that your lawyer was away on holiday and that you would soon be going on holiday yourself. You were not able to tell my office when you would reply to my letter.

  

It is, of course, open to you to seek such advice as you feel necessary. Under the procedures agreed by the House, however, Members are expected to respond to my inquiries for themselves and not through intermediaries, and I am sure that was not your intention. I am also sure that you are aware of the expectation set out in the Code of Conduct that Members will co-operate at all stages with a Commissioner's inquiry.

  

I appreciate the sensitivities of this matter and that we are now in the recess. I want to give you every opportunity to respond, but equally you will appreciate that I do need to bring this matter to a conclusion. I will be reporting on progress to the Committee at its first meeting when the House resumes. It would be very helpful, therefore, to know when I can expect a reply to my letter. I look forward to hearing from you.

  

30 July 2012

59.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 4 September 2012

This letter is to let you know that, although you have not responded to my letters to you of 4 and 30 July, I am nevertheless inviting you to interview so that I can bring this inquiry to a conclusion.[421]

  

My previous letters gave you the opportunity to add to or modify the extensive evidence which you have already given to me, and drew your attention to the relevant procedural provisions which make it clear that Members should respond to the Commissioner's inquiries for themselves and that they are expected to co-operate with such inquiries at all stages.

  

I am satisfied that you have already given me sufficient evidence to enable me to bring this inquiry to a conclusion and that I have given you a substantial period to comment further on that evidence. I do not believe that I would be justified in deferring this matter further, and I would now, therefore, like to invite you to interview so that we can discuss the main questions arising on the basis of the evidence you have given me.

  

My office will, therefore, be in touch with you to arrange a date and time which is convenient to you. You would, of course, be welcome to bring a friend or adviser to that interview, although you will be expected to respond to the questions yourself. I will write to you before the interview to give you more information about the process and to let you know the main areas which I suggest we need to cover.

  

I would be most grateful for your co-operation at this final stage of the inquiry.

  

4 September 2012

60.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 12 September 2012

This letter is to let you know how I will proceed in the light of your decision not to accept the invitation which I sent you in my letter of 4 September to come to an interview at the conclusion of this inquiry.[422]

  

My letter of 4 September[423] noted that you had not responded to my previous letters of 4 and 30 July[424] and said that I would nevertheless like to invite you to interview. As promised in that letter, my office spoke to you, on 10 September, to make arrangements for the interview. You made clear that you did not wish to do so and noted that the matter would go to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. My office attempted to get in touch with you for a further word, but was unable to contact you.

  

The Code of Conduct requires that: "Members shall cooperate, at all stages, with any investigation into their conduct by or under the authority of the House." I am disappointed, therefore, that you have decided not to cooperate at this final stage of the inquiry—as you cooperated so fully in its previous stages. I will now proceed to prepare the draft factual sections of the memorandum which I will be submitting to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. In accordance with my normal practice, I will send you the factual sections of the draft memorandum so that you can comment, if you so wish, on their factual accuracy. I will then prepare my own conclusions and submit the full memorandum to the Committee. The Clerk of the Committee will send you a copy of the full memorandum before the Committee meets to consider it so that you can comment on it and, if you so wish, ask to give oral evidence to the Committee.

  

I hope this letter has set out clearly the remaining stages of this inquiry. I would be very ready to have an informal meeting with you at any time to discuss or explain the procedure more fully. If you would like such a meeting, do please contact me here at the House.

  

12 September 2012

61.  Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 26 September 2012

Firstly I would like to apologise for the long delay in replying to your letters. Much of my life was put on hold during the police investigation into [this] complaint. It was the first time in four decades of professional work as a political animal that anything like that had happened. My children were told at school and university, "Your dad is going to prison". Almost daily there were blogs, emails or tweets to me, often read by staff and interns, or circulated in the constituency, proclaiming that I should be in jail and would soon be going there. I suffered major international and national reputational damage. I had to stand down from international delegations and other work to which I had dedicated years of my life. External work dried up. [...] Although, thanks to the support of MP colleagues of all parties as well as the Speaker all of whom know me I was sustained by continuing as an MP there were many dark moments in the last two years. Much of my savings, more than £40,000, were expended on lawyers' fees. I was ill [...] as the police investigation dragged on for nearly two years.

  

When finally the dark cloud was lifted I went into shut down for most of the summer period [...]. I did not think I was in any fit state to be interviewed in that period.

  

As you correctly state I hope that in previous correspondence I have tried to set out the position as I saw it. I was active in my capacity as an MP on European issues and after 2005 on working on anti-semitism. The monies I claimed back under the European Policy Institute invoices I believed to be a reasonable reflection of the monies that had been spent in relation to parliamentary business. I believe I could have claimed the costs directly if I had kept all the individual receipts for each payment or purchase (if they were given by the supplier). I was aware that claims could be made of up to £250 per month for petty cash under the IEP scheme. I made no such claims, instead estimating and amalgamating all the costs and monies paid for work incidental to my Parliamentary duties in the EPI invoice claimed under the IEP Allowance scheme.

  

I believed that the Allowances Scheme allowed an MP to estimate various categories of claim up to a reasonable maximum amount. Since the [...] complaint I have come to realise that I was unable to provide sufficient documentary evidence to support all the EPI claims which is why I paid back all the moneys claimed under that heading. I also came to recognise that my actions had fallen below the accounting standards that are now required for individuals claiming public funds and were open to criticism. During this period I also found out that I had over-claimed by some £3,000 on my ACA claim forms. Although the Director of Finance admitted that his own office had failed to spot a fairly glaring over-claim in the forms I submitted which they should have done, it was clearly a further example of my own weakness and failings in office administration and due and proper accounting. The process of lumping together my out of pocket expenses in EPI invoices (some related to the then Prime Minister's request I act as his envoy to European politicians) was the wrong way to approach the claims and could be the subject of criticism. I regret not collecting receipts for every item of expenditure and duly submitting them as I am now doing under the Ipsa scheme. I am not and never have been sufficiently organised in that way.

  

I can only repeat my regret and apologies for not having fully followed the rules to the strictest interpretation of the letter and bringing down upon my own head the troubles that have taken up so much of my life since the summer of 2009. In the light of this I do not think an interview can add anything.

  

26 September 2012

62.  Letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 3 October 2012

Thank you for your letter of 26 September[425] responding to mine of 4 and 30 July and 4 and 12 September.[426]

  

I was grateful for your statement summarising your position, which was most useful. I am disappointed, however, that you have declined to accept my invitation to an interview at a time convenient to you. Your co-operation here would, I believe, have helped the Committee when it came to consider my memorandum.

  

I now enclose the factual sections of my draft memorandum. While the content of the memorandum is, of course, a matter for me, I would be very grateful to know whether you are content with its factual accuracy. If you have any comments on the factual accuracy, it would be very helpful if you could let me have them by close on Thursday 11 October.

  

Subject to your response, I will then prepare my conclusions before submitting the full memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. I will let you and the complainant know in confidence when I do so. The Clerk of the Committee will let you have a copy of the full memorandum before the Committee meets and give you an opportunity to respond, and to ask to give oral evidence to the Committee if you so wish.

  

I look forward to hearing from you by close on Thursday 11 October. If there is any difficulty about this or you would like a word about the process, do please contact me at the House.

  

3 October 2012

63.  Extract from letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP, 8 October 2012

[...]

[In the memorandum] you write EPI invoices were signed "by a member of Mr MacShane's staff at his request." That is not what I wrote to you on 22 July [WE 53]. This was investigated by the police as you know and I would be grateful if you could quote in full the relevant sentence in [WE 53] so that facts are clear in your own report.

  

[...]

  

8 October 2012

64.  Extract from letter to Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP from the Commissioner, 9 October 2012

[...]

  

Finally, you will see that I have, at your request, amended the reference in paragraph [...] relating to who actually signed the invoices. I had taken from your letter of 22 July 2009 the fact that your staff scrawled the "nom de plume" in the same way that they scrawl your own name.[427] But I take it from your letter of 8 October 2012 that this is not correct. I have therefore made clear that you scrawled the "nom de plume" yourself. If this is wrong, could you contact me by return to let me know whether you signed the name, your staff signed the name, or you both did on different occasions? Otherwise, I will assume that it was you yourself.

  

[...]

  

9 October 2012

65.  Extract from letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Denis Macshane MP, 10 October 2012

[...]

  

Your changes are perfectly reasonable but I must ask that you stick to the text and not make assumptions. This matter was dealt with by the police and I do not propose to reopen it. So please use what I wrote [in WE 53] namely:

  

"I and I alone take full responsibility for all the payments and claims made by the EPI as a vehicle. My staff scrawl my name regularly on letters and the reference to [name] is to a similarly scrawled nom de plume."

Of course you have the right and power to write what you want but as far as I am concerned that phrase is the correct one from my earlier written evidence.

  

10 October 2012


254   WE 2 Back

255   Committee on Standards and Privileges, Eighth Report of Session 2007-08, The Complaints System and the Criminal Law, HC 523 Back

256   Mr Barnbrook signed his letter as the Spokesman on Law and Order, British National Party. He let me know on 7 July 2012 (not included in the written evidence) that he was no longer a member of that political party. Back

257   WE 1 Back

258   WE 3 Back

259   WE 1 Back

260   WE 1 and 4 Back

261   WE 5 Back

262   WE 7 Back

263   WE 6 and WE 5 Back

264   WE 5 Back

265   This refers to the review undertaken by Sir Thomas Legg of Members' claims against the Additional Costs Allowance. See Members Estimate Committee, First Report of Session 2009-10, Review of Past ACA Payments, HC 343. Back

266   Not included in the written evidence Back

267   WE 9 Back

268   WE 8 Back

269   WE 8 Back

270   Not included in the written evidence. For a revised version, see WE 33. Back

271   Not included in the written evidence. For a revised version, see WE 33. Back

272   WE 6 Back

273   WE 8 Back

274   WE 10 Back

275   WE 12 Back

276   Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Annual Report 2008-09, HC 608, paragraph 3.25 Back

277   WE 10 Back

278   This was never received. Back

279   WE 11 Back

280   WE 10 Back

281   Not included in the written evidence. For the final version, see WE 33. Back

282   WE 6 Back

283   WE 6 Back

284   WE 12 Back

285   WE 5 Back

286   WE 5 and WE 8 Back

287   WE 13 Back

288   WE 11 Back

289   WE 10 Back

290   WE 14 Back

291   WE 9 Back

292   WE 10 Back

293   WE 9 Back

294   Not included in the written evidence Back

295   WE 11 Back

296   WE 13 Back

297   WE 8 Back

298   Not included in the written evidence Back

299   WE 9 Back

300   WE 13 Back

301   WE 5 Back

302   See footnote 195. Back

303   WE 13 and WE 15 Back

304   Not included in the written evidence. Back

305   Not included in the written evidence. Back

306   WE 19-25 Back

307   WE 19-22 Back

308   The Industrial Union of Metalworkers. Back

309   Not included in the written evidence Back

310   WE 26 Back

311   In the event, I have not needed to use this name. Back

312   WE 27 Back

313   WE 28 Back

314   WE 30 Back

315   WE 17 Back

316   WE 17 Back

317   WE 13 and WE 15 Back

318   WE 26 Back

319   WE 28 Back

320   Not included in the written evidence Back

321   WE 17 Back

322   The cash payments amounted to the equivalent of about £4,500 at the relevant times.  Back

323   WE 33 Back

324   WE 20 Back

325   WE 19 Back

326   WE 20 Back

327   WE 19 Back

328   WE 21 Back

329   WE 22 Back

330   WE 20 Back

331   WE 20 Back

332   WE 19 Back

333   WE 21 Back

334   WE 22 Back

335   WE 20 Back

336   WE 19 Back

337   WE 22 Back

338   WE 26 and WE 28 Back

339   WE 14 Back

340   WE 32 Back

341   Not included in the written evidence Back

342   WE 35 Back

343   WE 34 Back

344   WE 33 Back

345   WE 33 Back

346   Not included in the written evidence Back

347   WE 36 Back

348   WE 1 Back

349   WE 5 Back

350   WE 6 Back

351   WE 8 Back

352   WE 9 Back

353   WE 10 Back

354   WE 11 and WE 12 Back

355   WE 13 Back

356   WE 14 Back

357   WE 15 Back

358   WE 25, WE 26, WE 28 and WE 30 Back

359   Not included in the written evidence Back

360   WE 27 and WE 33 Back

361   WE 34. This response was also received as a letter. Back

362   WE 32 and WE 33 Back

363   WE 34 Back

364   WE 38 Back

365   Not included in the written evidence Back

366   WE 33 Back

367   Not included in the written evidence Back

368   WE 6 Back

369   WE 39 Back

370   WE 38 Back

371   Not included in the written evidence Back

372   WE 32 Back

373   WE 40 Back

374   WE 38 Back

375   Not included in the written evidence Back

376   WE 39 Back

377   WE 40 Back

378   WE 41 Back

379   WE 45 Back

380   WE 42 Back

381   WE 43 Back

382   WE 44 and WE 45 Back

383   WE 38 Back

384   Not included in the written evidence Back

385   WE 47 Back

386   WE 9 Back

387   WE 11 Back

388   WE 41 Back

389   WE 40 Back

390   WE 42 Back

391   WE 46 Back

392   WE 41 Back

393   Not included in the written evidence. For an example of an EPI invoice, see WE 49. Back

394   WE 48 Back

395   Not included in the written evidence Back

396   WE 17 Back

397   WE 32 Back

398   WE 34 Back

399   WE 11 Back

400   WE 42 Back

401   WE 42, WE 46 and WE 50 Back

402   WE 32 Back

403   This note was not received. Back

404   WE 46 Back

405   Not included in the written evidence. Back

406   WE 51 Back

407   WE 42, WE 46 and WE 50 Back

408   WE 42 Back

409   WE 53 Back

410   WE 52 Back

411   WE 53 Back

412   WE 11 Back

413   WE 52 Back

414   WE 54 Back

415   See footnote 195. Back

416   See footnote 195. Back

417   WE 30 Back

418   Not included in the written evidence Back

419   Not included in the written evidence Back

420   WE 57 Back

421   WE 57 and WE 58 Back

422   WE 59 Back

423   WE 59 Back

424   WE 57 and WE 58 Back

425   WE 61 Back

426   WE 57-60 Back

427   WE 53 Back


 
previous page contents next page


© Parliamentary copyright 2012
Prepared 2 November 2012