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Gordon Brown ticked off in expenses probe
26 Feb 2009Gordon Brown was ticked off today for breaching rules on expenses, but cleared of deliberately trying to deceive parliamentary authorities.
Parliament's sleaze watchdog John Lyon had investigated complaints that Brown had failed to properly declare £1,600 he received in rent from sub-letting part of his Scottish constituency office to Labour Party colleagues.
Lyon's report cleared Brown of failing to declare the rent, but did confirm he breached guidelines introduced in 2004 which state that MPs cannot sub-let accommodation paid for from parliamentary allowances.
However the report concluded Brown had done this inadvertently and neither he nor the Labour Party had benefitted as a result. Consequently he will not face any punishment.
"We accept that Mr Brown's breach of the rules of the House was inadvertent and that he took steps to rectify it as soon as it was drawn to his attention," the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said.
"Mr Brown has apologised and in our view no further action is necessary."
Conservative MP Greg Hands who made the complaint said he accepted Brown's apology.
"It does not appear that the Prime Minister has personally profited from the breach, and he did quickly rectify the situation when it was brought to his attention by my complaint and by the media," he said.
Reader views (10)
If Brown had been a lowly backbencher would the outcome have been the same? It's about time he realised the public don't want him, he was never elected for Primeminister by the public, he just sort of fell into it because no one else was prepared to stand up to him. He'll be like the "One-Hit-Wonder" never seen or heard of again when he's finally ousted, but like all dictators he'll hang on until the bitter end then he'll be totally at a loss as to why he wasn't re-elected by the public after all he's always right - in his opinion that is!
- Mike, Northumberland, UK, 22/05/2009 13:28
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really Gordon! How about lending me the £1600 per month you seem to have forgotten about! Must be your bank balance is a tad higher than the rest of us, for you not to notice.
Can we please have someone to run the country that doesn't let us all down, and that is actually VOTED in. He doesn't care, whilst the rest of us are struggling. BE A MAN, and ADMIT DEFEAT- election time cannot come fast enough.
- Lj, London, UK, 26/02/2009 23:40
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So if nobody benefited, who got the money? Was tax paid on it?
- Mdj E10, london, uk, 26/02/2009 21:05
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join the snout in trough club
- George, france, 26/02/2009 17:09
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He does not care.
- Steve, London, 26/02/2009 16:19
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I think there is nothing proper about that "man".
- Peteo, London, NW1, 26/02/2009 16:15
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So if someone claiming benefits is found to be receiving undeclared rent for sub-letting rooms in their house, all they need to do is apologise. They will not be penalised at all. Yeh, right!
- Colin, Derbyshire, England, 26/02/2009 16:12
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Just look at the look on this mans face.
Say's it all.
"No further action will be taken" No change there then.
- Dee Jay, Fleet Hampshire, 26/02/2009 13:45
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I have yet to see a Court case in which a defendant has been found "not guilty" on the plea that he did not knew what he was doing tho'looking at Brown's career it has to be said that he rarely seems to know what he is doing and the country has definitely not benefitted from his carelessness.
- Doff, filey yorks, 26/02/2009 12:40
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Of course he was let off, he doesn't have the BRAINS to do it deliberately. Shame for UK plc though, as he has no clue how to run that either .......
- Marianne, SW France, 26/02/2009 12:23
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