We have this week begun a new investigation into the election spending of Zac Goldsmith, Chris Huhne and Ed Balls. We have reason to believe that there was irregular spending in all three of these tight campaigns.

There is evidence of high spending in all of these seats, yet these successful candidates managed to declare their expenditure at the permitted level. Chris Huhne and Zac Goldsmith are both multi-millionaires, while Ed Balls received large amounts of funding from the Unite trade union.

Until last year Spelman co-owned Spelman, Cormack & Associates, a food and biotechnology lobbying firm she set up in 1989 with her husband, Mr Mark Spelman, using her maiden name, Cormack. Less than a year ago she transferred her shares in the firm to her husband and resigned her directorship in May 2009.

According to Companies House records the company’s registered office was in the Secretary of State’s constituency home until May last year. Her husband, Mark Spelman, remains a director of the company still trading under the Secretary of State’s name in sectors closely related to issues for which she is responsible.

Given that the company is still using her maiden name to trade, a name by which she would have been known when active in farming politics in the 1980s, this is clearly of public interest.

The Sunlight Centre has posed the following questions:

1. Will the Secretary of State step back from dealing with matters which impact on her former clients in the agri-business and bio-tech industy?

2. Has the Secretary of State fully declared all the agri-business companies with which her “family business” had dealings, because these do not seem to be a matter of public record?

3. Will she recuse herself specifically from any negotiations with a bearing on the sugar beet industry given her close past relationship to those with a commercial interest in these negotiations?

A full copy of the Sunlight Centre’s letter to Defra is included below.

The full letter:

Helen Ghosh
Permanent Secretary
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR

Sent by fax and post to: 0207 238 6118

Dear Ms. Ghosh,

I am writing to bring to your attention a possible conflict of interesting regarding the newly appointed Secretary of State for your department, the Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP.

As you should already be aware, until last year the Secretary of State for your department co-owned Spelman, Cormack & Associates, a food and biotechnology lobbying firm she set up in 1989 with her husband, Mr Mark Spelman, using her maiden name, Cormack. Less than a year ago she transferred her shares in the firm to her husband and resigned her directorship in May 2009. According to Companies House records the company’s registered office was in the Secretary of State’s constituency home until May last year. Her husband, Mark Spelman, remains a director of the company still trading under the Secretary of State’s name in sectors closely related to issues for which she is responsible. Given that the company is still using her maiden name to trade, a name by which she would have been known when active in farming politics in the 1980s, this is clearly of public interest.

The Secretary of State is in charge of negotiating subsidies, quotas and tariff barriers at the EU Agricultural Council, giving rise to a clear conflict of interest between this official role and her close links to a company which has in the past lobbied or may be intending to lobby over such matters. The Secretary of State is also responsible for Genetically Modified food regulations at the same time as her husband’s firm deals with bio-tech industry clients. Ms. Spelman therefore remains linked to a farming and food lobbying firm that she set up, held shares in for ten years, and for which her husband is still using her name and home address for commercially.

In view of this information we ask you to clarify the following:

1. Will the Secretary of State step back from dealing with matters which impact on her former clients in the agri-business and bio-tech industy?

2. Has the Secretary of State fully declared all the agri-business companies with which her “family business” had dealings, because these do not seem to be a matter of public record?

3. Will she recuse herself specifically from any negotiations with a bearing on the sugar beet industry given her close past relationship to those with a commercial interest in these negotiations?

As a result of anti-competitive EU regulations and industry lobbying consumers in Britain pay massively inflated prices for sugar in comparison to world prices, there is therefore a legitimate public interest in knowing that the Minister responsible for negotiating the regime which governs sugar prices is free of any perceived conflict of interest or association with vested commercial interests in this area.

Yours sincerely,

Juliet Samuel
Centre for Open Politics
juliet@sunlight-cops.org.uk

Here’s a reminder of some of Ms Smith’s expense claims:

• She became the expenses scandal “poster girl” after her husband was found to have claimed £10 to watch porn in a hotel. She also pays her husband a full salary on expenses for being her Parliamentary assistant.
• She was found to be guilty of having wrongly designated her main home to the tune of £116,000 extra in expense claims and had to issue a humiliating apology to the House.
• Despite this, she never paid the money back.
• She claimed for decorating her house, fencing the garden, an outdoor patio heater, a barbecue, cleaning her carpet, a Panasonic SCMP31 mini hi-fi.

With all that kit, at least we know she’ll be well-equipped to spend her post-Parliament days in her garden!

Attack Ad running from 6 pm tonight in Morley and Outwood on local media websites Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post, Morley and Outwood Observer and Wakefield Express from 6pm.

Transparency and anti-corruption campaigners at the Sunlight Centre have bought advertising space for a video which attacks Ed Balls for expenses abuses including flipping his house three times, claiming for a remembrance poppy wreath and taking an £89,000 payment for producing two pamphlets for the Smith Institute in 9 months.  The Smith Institute charity was closely linked to Gordon Brown and was criticised by the Charity Commission for supporting Brownite political projects.  Gordon Brown’s allies Lord Myners and Wilf Stevenson resigned from the Smith Institute follwoing the report and it was widely considered to be a slush fund for Brown’s leadership ambitions.

The advert includes footage of Ed Balls at Oxford University wearing a Nazi uniform.

Not many people, and certainly not many of his constituents, know the role that Ed Balls played in the scandal around Gordon Brown’s favourite, think-tank The Smith Institute, and its breach of the charity laws covering party political activity.

 

 

 

Controversal MP Shahid Malik has today attacked the Sunlight Centre for what he saw as a politically motivated complaint against him put in to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

In response Harry Cole from the Sunlight Centre said:

“For Mr Malik to suggest that the complaint by the Sunlight Centre for Open Politics was politically motivated shows, even now, how out of touch he is with public outrage concerning the expenses crisis. He should also await the publication of John Lyon’s full report before declaring himself a saint. As the length and depth of John Lyon’s investigation shows there was serious concern surrounding Mr Malik’s office arrangements that took nearly a year to unravel. We are disappointed if, once again, John Lyon has been forced to clear an MP who while working “within the rules” has got away with practices that would be wholly inappropriate in any other profession. The Sunlight Centre has argued that it’s not just trust in politics that is broken, but the rules of the game too.”

TUESDAY 10AM

Next Tuesday 30th March, 3 MPs and one Lord will attend the first formal day of their trial for fraud or false accounting. This is the culmination of many months’ outrage, investigation and fury at our parliamentarians’ rank abuse of the expenses system. Hundreds have promised to turn out in protest and the Sunlight Centre and other friends hope you will join us.

IT WILL BE KICKING OFF AT 10AM

SOUTHWARK CROWN COURT:

Stephen Byers MP, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1998), Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1998–2001) and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2001–2002) was caught in a Sunday Times sting operation in which he offered access to the British government for up to £5000 per day. He referred to himself as a “cab for hire” and has disgraced himself.

We believe, in light of these revelations that his membership of the Queen’s advisory body, the Privy Council, is wholly and utterly inappropriate.

We, the undersigned, call on Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to strip Stephen Byers MP of his membership of the Privy Council due to his involvement in offering to sell access to the British Government for personal profit.

SIGN

Please click below to donate to the Sunlight Centre.

Mr Devine was first reported to the police by the Sunlight Centre for Open Politics

Commenting today on the news Harry Cole from Sunlight said “this is a great day for transparency. Finally the message is getting through that law makers cannot be lawbreakers.”

Mr Dismore is under intense pressure to step down from his committee role, especially given the precedent has been set by David Curry MP, who when finding himself in very similar circumstances last Friday rightly stood down from the Committee while he is under investigation.

Harry Cole from the Sunlight Centre said “The Committee should command the trust and full confidence of not only Parliament, but of the public as well. That is, we believe, not possible while Mr Dismore remains a member.”

The letter stated:

Mr John Lyon CB,
Commissioner
Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Sent by post and by fax to : 020 7219 0490

23rd November 2009

Dear Mr Lyon,

We are writing to ask you to investigate Andrew Dismore MP, a member of the Standards and Privileges Committee. Records show that between 2001 and 2003 Mr Dismore claimed £34,000 for a second home property, despite his constituency being just eight miles from Westminster. The Daily Telegraph, who have a proven track record in this field, have reported that Mr Dismore’s partner used that publically funded property to run a “homeopathic surgery”. In 2003 it appears Mr Dismore “flipped” his second home allocation and claimed an additional £31,000 for what was formally designated as his Main Home. In light of the less than clear explanation and attempted justifications reported from Mr Dismore, we believe that there is a prima facie case to answer here under Section 3.2.1. b of the Green Book (2003) in that it is open to question that this was necessary for the purpose of performing his parliamentary duties. We also ask did Mr Dismore comply with Section 3.6.1. (Documentation Needed) and supply “a copy of the relevant agreement with your tenant or lodger” in respect of the “homeopathic surgery”.

We do not feel that the current intense public disquiet with the situation concerning Mr Dismore’s expenses is compatible with Mr Dismore remaining on the Standards and Privileges Committee. A precedent has been set by David Curry MP, who when finding himself in very similar circumstances just last Friday decided, rightly in our view, to stand down from the Committee while he is under investigation. Given the fact that you, as the Commissioner for Standards report to this committee you must be all to aware of the obvious conflict of interest. The Committee should command the trust and full confidence of not only Parliament, but of the public as well. That is, we believe, not possible while Mr Dismore remains a member.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Cole
harry@sunlight-cops.org.uk