MP used public money to promote himself

CHELSEA and Fulham MP Greg Hands has been urged to apologise to the House of Commons for misusing nearly £4,500 of Parliamentary stationary.

Mr Hands, a Conservative MP since 2005, was accused of sending a “political” newsletter to 7,000 households in his constituency in April 2019.

He used stationery and pre-paid envelopes which should only be used for “parliamentary functions”.

The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner said in September that Mr Hands’s breach was “at the less serious end of the spectrum”, but that he should reimburse the House of Commons by £4,865.55.

He was also told to apologise and acknowledge that he broke the rules, as part of a “rectification” procedure.

But Mr Hands, a minister for trade policy, disagreed and instead sought to have the dispute settled by the crossparty MPs’ Standards Committee.

On Monday, May 4 the Standards Committee said it agreed “unanimously” to uphold the Commissioner’s decision.

The letter Mr Hands sent was about subjects including Charing Cross Hospital, Heathrow Airport’s expansion, schools, proposed bus cuts, and crime.

He argued the letter had been to provide his constituents with updates on “several different petitions he had been running”.

He said that to write separate letters on those issues would have required a “greater volume of letters and envelopes overall, and therefore greater public expenditure”.

The committee was “not persuaded” by his argument that the letters were “not political”.

“A communication sent by a Member of Parliament to 7,000 constituents dealing with issues such as crime, policing, health and transport policy is unlikely to be sent without some consideration of its political impact on potential voters,” the committee said.

The committee also suggested Mr Hands referred the issue to the committee, and therefore delayed the final decision “to avoid the embarrassment of having to make a public apology for breaking parliamentary rules during an election campaign”.

He was re-elected in December with an increased majority of 11,241 votes.

Asked to comment on the committee’s decision, Mr Hands said “I note the findings of the Committee’s report, and welcome their judgement that this breach is ‘at the less serious end of the spectrum’.

“My motivation at all times was to keep stationary expenditure down and to save costs by combining various mailings to constituents into one. I shall, of course, be following the Committee’s recommendations on resolving the issue.”