Smith admits expenses 'disgrace'
Former British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
Former British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told TV viewers she had been “disgraced” by her expenses scandal and blamed her own “wrong” judgment.
The MP for Redditch in Worcestershire designated her sister’s London house where she occasionally stayed as her “main home”, then claimed second home allowances on her Redditch property.
A standards inquiry ruled against her and she was ordered to apologise to the Commons.
Asked on the BBC’s Question Time last night if she had been disgraced, Ms Smith replied: “Yes I think to a certain extent I have been.
“I think it’s obvious because I have made an apology to Parliament that I was wrong. That’s why I made the apology.”
She said of the matter that “clearly my judgment was wrong”, adding: “My job now is to work to rebuild I hope people’s trust in me as their constituency representative and to rebuild my ability to talk about things that brought me into politics in the first place.”
Ms Smith – who now faces a fight to hold on to her Commons seat – also said people who had been “disgraced” should not go to the House of Lords.
MPs who hold the office of Home Secretary are traditionally elevated to the second chamber.
An inquiry conducted by Standards Commissioner John Lyon found that Ms Smith initially registered her Redditch house as her main home after being elected to the Commons in 1997.
But it was switched to London in 1999 in line with a rule then in force that all ministers should have their primary residence in the capital for expenses purposes.
This rule changed in 2004 but Ms Smith continued to claim on the Redditch property – and received guidance from the Commons authorities in 2007 that this was a “reasonable” thing to do.
She argued the pressure of her ministerial work meant she continued to spend most nights of the week in the London home owned by her sister, where she paid rent, contributed towards bills and had access to communal rooms as well as her bedroom.
But Mr Lyon obtained unprecedented access to her ministerial diary and logs of police protection teams to show that in fact, after becoming Home Secretary in June 2007, she slept more nights in Redditch than London.
And he said guidance to MPs that they should nominate the property where they spend most nights as their main home did not mean that they should “reach an unnatural interpretation of that term”.
Her decision to continue to name the London home after 2007 was therefore “mistaken” and “contrary to the purpose as well as to the letter of the rule”.
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