North East MSP told to pay back £12.92 for sending out thank you notes

A North East MSP has paid back a total of £12.92 after he used parliamentary resources to send out party political material.

A complaint was made by constituent Daniel Forbes who received one of the letters Liam Kerr sent out to thank people for voting Conservative in May’s Holyrood election.

The Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life rejected the complaint, however, which was then passed on to the Scottish Parliament’s Corporate Body (SPCB).

In a letter sent to Mr Forbes, the SPCB said it “agreed that a breach had occurred” and said Mr Kerr would “reimburse the costs involved”, which amounted to £12.92 and has been paid.

An SNP source said: “We can hope he has learnt a very serious lesson that it’s completely unacceptable to tap public money to try and win votes and to play fast and loose with parliamentary rules.

“Quite rightly Liam Kerr has been forced to cough up from his own pocket.”

But a spokesman for the Scottish Conser vatives said: “Mr Kerr acknowledged the error two months ago, apologised and paid the postage costs – a total sum of £12.92.

“This was clearly a politicallymotivated complaint which was rejected by the commissioner and not considered worthy of any further action by the Scottish Parliament’s Corporate Body.

“The public may be wondering why the SNP, which is facing mounting problems in our NHS, our schools and on our railways, does not have better things to do with its time.”

Liam Kerr.