Prescott frustration revealed before Admiralty House apology
John Prescott sought to blame government officials for his failure to pay council tax on his Admiralty House flat in Whitehall, it has emerged.
The former deputy prime minister was forced to apologise in January 2006 after admitting he had allowed council tax at his Admiralty House flat, which should have come from his own pocket, to be paid by the taxpayer.
In total £3,830.52 was used from 1997 to pay council tax for the flat, his third home. A question from Conservative frontbencher Caroline Spelman prompted the admission, which he dismissed at the time as an “inadvertent error. based on a genuine misunderstanding”.
A record of a phone conversation with Mr Prescott by an unnamed official at the Department of Finance and Administration was released as part of a list of MPs’ expenses today, after a high court tribunal battle which had lasted for years.
The note reveals Mr Prescott blamed staff from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM, now the Department for Communities and Local Government) for the mix-up over the Admiralty House council tax payments.
“Mr Prescott phoned to discuss what he should do as a result of the adverse press coverage at the weekend,” the note, dated December 21st 2005, states.
“I took him through the. rules as they affect ministers, and clarified his own position.
“He now felt that he should have been paying this from his own pocket; but ODPM officials had not brought the matter to his attention.”
The note goes on to explain Mr Prescott said he had been paying income tax on the benefit-in-kind on the Admiralty House flat and that this had contributed to the confusion.
Embarrassment over the Admiralty House flat was only the first in a series of negative revelations relating to the deputy prime minister.
Media attention on this issue was dwarfed by revelations in the spring of 2006, when news of his affair with his diary secretary broke.
He even faced calls to resign when pictures in May 2006 showed Mr Prescott playing croquet outside his grace-and-favour country mansion at Dorneywood, hours after holiday-bound then prime minister Tony Blair had left him in charge of the country.
