Westminster blog

Barely a ripple. Perhaps it was the late release of the report into “Nannygate” – it didn’t emerge until after 6pm last night. Or it was a busy day. But newspapers could barely find the room to explain what the Commons’ authorities ruled over the Spelman affair.

It was the Tory MP herself to called for an investigation to help clear her name:

Anyway: this is what I originally wrote last night:

Caroline Spelman apologised last night after she was ordered to repay nearly £10,000 for subsidising her nanny with “misapplied” money from her Parliamentary allowance.
The former chair of the Conservative party had been accused of using her MP expenses to pay Tina Haynes for childcare services – as well as secretarial work – when newly elected to Parliament in 1997.
Mrs Spelman has always insisted that Mrs Haynes’ salary of £13,000 a year was for her administrative duties while the nannying duties were rewarded with free board and lodging.
A report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards confirmed that the secretarial work done by Mrs Haynes had met a genuine need, that she was qualified to do the job and that the work was done.
But it decided that she Mrs Spelman had breached the rules because the salary was “not incurred wholly or exclusively” on Parliamentary duties but also used to cross-subsidise her work as a nanny.
Richard Caborn, a Labour MP, said there had been a “significant breach of the rules” despite the Tories trying to “brush this under the carpet”.
The report said that Mrs Spelman was entirely open about her arrangement with colleagues, other MPs and officials at the Fees Office.
However, it concluded that she had inadvertently used her allowance for non-parliamentary purposes. The breach was “unintentional” and took place when rules and expectations were less stringent, it said.
Mrs Haynes’ successor as administration assistant was paid £4,800 a year less. On this basis the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has asked her to repay the difference over two years, equivalent to £9,600.
The allegations have lingered over Mrs Spelman since they were made on Newsnight last summer. In January she was moved from party chairman to become shadow communities secretary.
Last night she repeated her defence that the breach was an accident and took place more than a decade ago. She said she would immediately give back the money.