David Laws has resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury

[nomadking]

Things like Gas, Electricity, and Food would not be covered as they are not an additional expense as a result of having to have a second home.

Is this the first MP/Peer accused of receiving expenses for a accomodation that they didn't use? If not, were those other people criticised(at least) for it?

[Tezcatlipoca]

I thought that plenty of MPs did claim for items such as those?

And, even discounting that, it is still irrelevant IMO which bedroom he happened to sleep in, given that he did still sleep in the property in question. Why does it matter which bed he was in? Either way, he was still using the property in question which was being claimed for, & either way, he still had to pay rent!

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by Matt D

I thought that plenty of MPs did claim for items such as those?

And, even discounting that, it is still irrelevant IMO which bedroom he happened to sleep in, given that he did still sleep in the property in question. Why does it matter which bed he was in? Either way, he was still using the property in question which was being claimed for, & either way, he still had to pay rent!

Personally I think that the fact that his sexuality is now common knowledge, there are quite a few unenlightened people who will use petty financial technicality's as an excuse to have a dig at him.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by nomadking

Is this the first MP/Peer accused of receiving expenses for a accomodation that they didn't use? If not, were those other people criticised(at least) for it?

[May have been better if you had made a new post instead of a belated edit. More chance of being noticed ]

He is not actually being criticised for "receiving expenses for accommodation that he didn't use"!

The issue is that the rules were changed to prohibit claiming expenses to pay rent to a partner, yet he continued to claim expenses despite his landlord also being his partner.

His defence is that he wanted to keep his private life private. He could have come out & officially lived with his same-sex partner, and claimed FAR MORE MONEY than what he actually claimed, but he didn't. He has apologised, resigned, and is paying the money back.

He did use the accommodation (as in, the actual property he was claiming expenses for). It is just assumed however that he probably didn't use the actual bedroom, given that he would presumably have been sleeping in a different room in the same property with his partner.

Why are you so hung up over which bed he slept in? It was in the same property he was claiming for, & he would still need to pay rent regardless, who cares which room he was in?

If you want some actual examples of what I believe to be dodgy claims, then try these instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cash#Expenses_claims

Expenses claims
Main article: Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament

In the swirl of stories surrounding the 2009 Parliamentary Expenses scandal it was reported on 28 May 2009 that Cash had claimed £15,000 which he paid his daughter, Laetitia Cash, a prospective Conservative candidate, as rent for a Notting Hill flat, when he had a mortgaged flat of his own a few miles away, which his son Sam Cash was staying in rent-free. 'It was only for a year, she was getting married, she wasn't there....my other flat wasn't round the corner, it was in Westminster. It was done through the rules,'[3] he said on Newsnight.

The following day Cash announced that he had agreed to pay the money back. Cash was rejecting calls for his resignation and said he was hopeful of getting a fair hearing. David Cameron was said to have ordered Cash to co operate or risk having the Conservative whip withdrawn[4] Cash faced a no-confidence vote by secret ballot by his constituency party, 2 July 2009. He was, however, re-selected with "overwhelming" support. Cash also received a personal letter of support from Conservative leader David Cameron before the meeting thanking Cash for "the tireless contribution you make to the work of Parliament. You have a long record of serving your constituents with commitment and integrity".[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gib...es_controversy

Expenses controversy
Main article: United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal

In May 2009, Gibson became embroiled in the MPs' expenses scandal detailed by The Daily Telegraph, who reported that he claimed for a flat in which his daughter lived rent-free before selling it to her for half its market value.[4] Subsequently, he was barred from standing in the next general election by a disciplinary panel of the Labour Party.[5]

Believing that after the panel's decision his position was "untenable", he resigned as an MP (by the traditional procedural device of becoming Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham), thereby forcing a by-election.[1] The resultant byelection was won by Chloe Smith, the Conservative Party candidate, with a majority of 7,348 (reversing a previous Labour majority of 5,459).[6]

Originally Posted by frogstamper

Personally I think that the fact that his sexuality is now common knowledge, there are quite a few unenlightened people who will use petty financial technicality's as an excuse to have a dig at him.

Yup

[nomadking]

The only people bringing his sexuality into it, seem to be the people trying to defend him. Others have been criticised, but he is being defended by certain people. My problem with this, is that he is being defended because of his sexuality, whereas others have been criticised. People are saying that "it's understandable because...". If those others had not been criticised then surely it would not have been an issue at all and not a resigning matter.

He apparently can easily afford to own his own London residence and so would not need to rent anywhere. He used the expenses system to intentionally make a profit for someone close to him.

[jrhnewark]

Erm, the reason why he's resigned is because he was paying money to the guy he was sleeping with. He wasn't, it would appear, sharing a room with him or acting as his spouce. That's the crux of the matter.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by nomadking

He apparently can easily afford to own his own London residence and so would not need to rent anywhere.

I do not disagree with that, as I have said earlier. I think any MP who can afford it should pay for their own accommodation.

Originally Posted by nomadking

He used the expenses system to intentionally make a profit for someone close to him.

How so? I think that is a rather bold accusation.

Laws paid rent to his partner, & claimed expenses for it.

Laws' partner later sold the London property for a profit.

Laws then re-mortgaged his own constituency home to help his partner purchase a new property in London.

Laws continued to claim back his share of the costs of living in the property with his partner.

How was the expenses system used to make a profit? All he did was use it to pay rent to his partner, no different than if he was paying rent to a normal professional landlord. Living with your partner does not mean you live for free, there would still be contributions required just as if renting from a landlord rather than one who was also his partner.

As I said before, he claimed *less* than he would have done if he had been open about his personal life instead of wanting it to remain private, as he could have been open about his relationship & officially co-owned a property, and subsequently claimed the full £20k per year (as many MPs did!) instead of the lower amount he actually claimed.

Originally Posted by David Laws

I claimed back the costs of sharing a home in Kennington with James from 2001 to June 2007. In June 2007, James bought a new home in London and I continued to claim back my share of the costs. I extended the mortgage on my Somerset property, for which I do not claim any allowances or expenses, to help James purchase the new property.

[jrhnewark]

I think the poor chap actually just wanted to be private about his relationship. That's fine by me even if he was straight rather than gay.

Let me tell you, just because my girlfriend lives with me doesn't mean she lives for free!! No one in their right mind nowadays could afford it.

[Angua]

Let's see £6,600 per year as share of rent to hide a relationship with a secret partner.
V
£20,000 per year for a second home for an open relationship.

Silly lack of judgement in this enlightened day and age.

The real shame is in the grand scheme of things the Government has lost a highly able Secretary of State to the Treasury and will be much the poorer as a result.

The issue is that you cannot have a Chief Secretary to the Treasury having been seen to have his fingers in the till after all the expenses furore,having lied about it and carry on in the position three weeks into a new government.

At least he has behaved now in a gentlemanly manner.

Let's hope that there are no more political banana skins around the corner as we need for things to settle and the matter of government to continue so we achieve some sort of stability.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by chris9991

You'd have thought the Telegraph could have mentioned it earlier - or maybe it's one they missed

one saved until a rainy day.

the rainy day been the capital gains tax increases so time to slander some lib dems influence.

thats my take on it.

will be interesting to see now if he is replaced by another lib dem or a tory.

Telegraph now has fantastic dirt to throw at any time of it's choosing and i doubt very much this will be the last one we hear about. Was he wrong yes he was and for that reason he had to go and he has done so admitting he was wrong end of the story as far as i am concerned no need for further witch hunting on the part of anyone. As for the relationship part of this and wanting to keep privacy about it sorry but as far as i am concerned if privacy is that big a deal to you don't enter public life he chose too and when you do that whether we like it or not you give up a part of your privacy.

[Hom3r]

DC said he was an honourable man.

He conned the British tax payer out of £40,000, how is that honourable

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

DC said he was an honourable man.

He conned the British tax payer out of £40,000, how is that honourable

He was a conservative and they know honour better than most that is who labour copied.

I do love the double standards we the british public have on the whole expenses issue as though if any of us were in that position we wouldn't have played the system as well to whatever degree. He didn't con anyone he was less then forthcoming but ultimately claimed less then he could have done under the rules as they stood at the time so while i know it is oh so easy to constantly rip the guy down give him some credit.