Ex-minister Tony McNulty faces suspension after claiming £14,000-a-year expenses for parents' home

Published 26th Oct 2009

A former Labour Minister who used £60,000 of taxpayers’ money to pay for his parents’ home faces public disgrace after an official inquiry found him guilty of abusing his Commons expenses.

A report into Labour MP Tony McNulty’s conduct by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog, due to be published this week, criticises him for claiming £14,000 a year for a ‘second home’ which was in fact his parents’ main home.

Insiders say he is likely to be forced to make a grovelling apology to the Commons. Some say his offence is so grave he may be suspended from Parliament and could even be ordered to pay back some or all of the cash.

He will also come under pressure by Labour chiefs to resign as MP for Harrow East in the hope that the party can hold on to the seat at the next General Election. Mr McNulty secured a 4,730 majority in 2005.

The former Employment Minister claimed the expenses under rules intended to help MPs fund a second home if they have to travel a long way to Westminster from their constituency. Yet the semi-detached home in Harrow, where Mr McNulty’s parents James and Eileen live, is just 11 miles from Westminster.

Mr McNulty lives with his wife Christine Gilbert, the £225,0000-a-year head of the schools’ inspectorate Ofsted, at their ‘main home’ in Hammersmith, West London, itself only three miles from the Commons. The couple have a combined income of more than £300,000 a year.
Home in question: Mr McNulty claimed expenses for his parents' house

The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee is to meet this week to decide Mr McNulty’s punishment. The investigation by Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon followed a Mail on Sunday exposé in March.

Mr Lyon is understood to have ruled that Mr McNulty was wrong to use his expenses to pay for his parents’ house.

Mr McNulty defended himself during the inquiry, saying he did not claim the full allowance, nor did he submit housekeeping and other bills.

When confronted by The Mail on Sunday in March, Mr McNulty made a bizarre attempt to deflect criticism, saying the second home allowance should be scrapped for all MPs who lived within 60 miles of London.

Mr McNulty admitted his arrangements were ‘odd’ but he denied breaking any rules. He said he had stopped claiming the second home allowance but refused to hand back the money he had claimed, insisting that he worked at the Harrow house at weekends.

The Minister went on to compare his own defence with that made by Nazi war criminals at the Nuremburg trials, who said they were ‘only obeying orders’.

‘It’s not against the rules, though I suppose you might say that is the Nuremburg defence,’ he said.

Source: ' Mail on Sunday '

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