Appendix 3: Letter to Kathryn Hudson from
Nadine Dorries
Having read the transcript of verbal evidence from
last week and following the article in yesterday's Sunday Mirror,
I would like to request that the committee receive a copy of this
memo in which I provide further clarification.
In my last statement I informed the committee that
I am frequently reported to various authorities. I thought it
worth clarifying that this has been as a result of my own campaign
to reduce the upper limit at which abortion takes place from twenty
four to twenty weeks.
The purpose of the reporting, on the basis of spurious
claims, is to undermine my credibility and to distract and preoccupy
both me and my office from the issue I have pursued since I became
an MP.
Following the reporting to the police I had need
to instruct a solicitor as the investigating officers would not
discuss the case with me directly—even though the Standards
Commissioner had investigated the very same complaint and had
made no finding against me.
The bill was in fact, £67,000 not £62,000
as I quoted. The House of Commons legal services department investigated
whether or not there was insurance provision available to cover
the bill as it had been incurred wholly and directly as a result
of my role as an MP.
I was informed via a letter from Michael Carpenter
of legal services who provided me with assistance that, following
his own investigations of various provisions that he thought may
assist, there was no such help available and that the obligation
to pay the bill was mine alone.
As a single parent with financial responsibilities
for a disabled ex husband, an elderly mother and a child in full
time education, I faced the possibility of bankruptcy or finding
a way to pay the bill.
This is the initial impetus that drove me to undertake
media work.
With regard to the Sunday Mirror.
I was informed that the Standards Commissioner was
conducting an inquiry by a Mirror journalist before I had been
informed by the Standards Commissioner.
Following my appearance at the committee last week,
I received a call within minutes from a journalist asking me to
confirm my appearance at the committee. I had not yet even reached
my office in Portcullis House following the meeting.
Thirty minutes later, in a full room of MPs and journalists,
I was asked to confirm my evidence to the committee, which I had
left still less than an hour earlier, by another journalist during
a public answer and questions session.
I then received a query from Isabel Oakshott of the
Sunday Times asking the same. Today my local press have contacted
me confirming they have been informed by another journalist who
appears to know the findings of the report and has 'tipped them
off.'
The claim by the Sunday Mirror in this week's paper
that there is a 'campaign' is unknown to my office and smacks
of an attempt to apply pressure to the committee based on mischievous
and untrue reporting.
We have not received a single email, letter or telephone
call regarding any assumed fee from ITV since November 2012. The
claim made by the Sunday Mirror is wholly untrue and it would
appear that the only campaign is one of their own, which is politically
motivated.
I have never and would never ask any client to defer
payment as I believe to do so would be construed as tax avoidance
and is possibly illegal.
In the last week I have spoken to a number of MPs.
Those in the 2010 intake have informed me that when they ring
the registrar they are told that they do have to register payments
made to their company.
MPs who have been in the House longer, such as I,
were advised to register only payments drawn from the company.
However, an exceptional few, because payments to
their company are regular occurrence based on a fixed term payment
for non execs, disclose what is paid into their company but these
MPs also are of the opinion that they do this as a voluntary measure
and in doing so are 'over declaring.'
This suggests that the interpretation of the rules
has been subtly altered without MPs being formally told.
If the interpretation is now that MPs are in breach
of the rules if they do not declare payments made into their company
as opposed to drawings from the company, many, many MPs on both
sides of the House are in breach of the rules and are unaware
that this is the case.
I was informed that I didn't have to register a payment
but was advised to, which I could not do without being in breach
of contract. On the basis of ambiguous advice and a desire to
ensure that I fully comply with the rules, I sought a further
layer of professional advice which, as I stated last week, informed
me that a reasonable interpretation of the rules was that I had
an obligation to report remuneration to myself, not payment to
Averbrook.
I thank the committee for taking the time to read
this late submission.
21 October 2013
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