Conservative Party chairman Caroline Spelman has denied using her MP's parliamentary allowance to pay her children's former nanny.

Ms Spelman said the money was used to pay Tina Haines for secretarial work she carried out between 1997 and 1998.

She said she still believes that her actions were "within the rules" but will refer the matter to the parliamentary standards commissioner.

But Ms Haines told BBC Newsnight that she did minimal secretarial work.

Speaking outside her home in the Midlands, Ms Spelman, MP for Meriden, said: "My prime concern was to make sure that my constituents needs were rapidly attended to as a new MP.

'Practical solution'

"Now at the time, I thought I was entirely within the rules - and that is still my belief but I will refer this series of events to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner."

Ms Spelman explained that she became MP for Meriden in 1997 following the untimely death of her predecessor, and hiring her nanny to do consitutency administration was a "practical solution".

She said her home became the constituency office and Ms Baines would answer the telephone, and open and sort the post.

Ms Spelman, who has recently taken charge of improving the Conservatives' record on expenses, added: "As a working mother that offered a practical solution because she could deal with the secretarial side when the children were at school."

The arrangement came to an end a year later when the chief whip told her it could be "open to misinterpretaton".

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC Ms Spelman "is someone of enormous integrity and honesty".

Mr Osbourne added that she was "the last person in Parliament" who would do something wrong.

(BBC)

<< Back