Ex-minister must apologise for dodging rules break rap
By politics.co.uk staff
A former Labour minister has been told to apologise to the Commons after deliberately avoiding a resolution to a minor rules break before the general election.
Jim Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, only needed to apologise, repay £24 and transfer expenditure from one parliamentary allowance to another after a local councillor complained he had broken expenses rules.
After initially accepting his guilt he rescinded his acceptance of the Commons’ standards and privileges committee’s instructions, later admitting the decision had not been “wholly influenced” by the imminence of the election after originally denying the election’s relevance completely.
He held his seat with a 4.7% improved share of the vote, holding off a challenge from Conservative candidate Tim Archer through a 6,030 majority.
“We are bound to conclude that Mr Fitzpatrick’s primary motivation in eventually rejecting rectification of this complaint, having previously agreed to it, was to avoid the fact that he had breached the rules becoming public knowledge at a politically sensitive time,” the committee’s report stated.
“This, rather than the minor breach of the rules, is the matter that causes us most concern.”
In addition to ordering him to apologise the committee has told Mr Fitzpatrick to repay the entire £557 cost of provided stationery and pre-paid envelopes “misused by him” from 2007 to 2009.
