Oliver Heald MP And The Strange Case of The Missing Note - Now You See It - Now You Don't!
Submitted by Ian on Sun, 13/12/2009 - 14:05
The published, public record at Parliament's own website of Mr Heald MP's most recent expenses - appears to have had a hand-written note expunged since publication on Thu 10/12/09. This note stated that his two bedroom tax-payer funded flat in London was being shared with two of his children.
Where has that note gone? Please see my letter to my MP - Oliver Heald (quoted in my previous blog post here) - asking some straight-forward and reasonable questions about the use of his tax-payer funded flat by two of his children.
That note was the last document at the end of this file: http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allo...
... you can see that the note has been removed. How, why? I do not know who has the authority and ability to do that? It is a question the press might consider worthy of investigation.
Mr Heald had included that note to explain why he was dividing the "utility" bills three ways and claiming just one-third (this is clearly shown on the utility bills with hand-written annotation).
Fortunately, just in case anyone might think (myself included) that I have been "seeing things" that don't exist MPs' expenses spotters over at the Guardian had flagged the note up as interesting - to say the least - and we can still see it there: http://mps-expenses2.guardian.co.uk/page/28288/
Chris Havergal over at the Cambridge news had also spotted it - reporting on 12/12/09 "...on May 6 this year, Mr Heald announced he was claiming just one third of all the utility bills - as two of his children were staying with him." You can see his article here: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_cambridge/displayarticle.asp?id=...
Here is the missing note:
YES MR HEALD - BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FULL COSTS BORNE BY THE TAX PAYER: MORTGAGE INTEREST; COUNCIL TAX; SERVICE CHARGES; CLEANING ETC? HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN LIVING THERE AND HOW DO THREE ADULTS SHARE A TWO BEDROOM FLAT (MEANT TO ASSIST YOU "WHOLLY & EXCLUSIVELY")?
So, just what is going on here? How and why is it that the published, public record of Oliver Heald's expenses, at Parliaments' website, has had the hand-written note expunged?
I do not know whether or not Mr Heald had anything to do with the disappearance of this note - perhaps it is a question the press will put to him?
Who knows the note might appear again on the public record - nothing would surprise me - but - as of today - it has been removed.
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My supplementary email/letter to Oliver heald
Dear Mr Heald MP
I am sorry to hear of your “family bereavement”, via your email auto-response. Please accept my condolences.
Under the circumstances, I understand fully that there will be a delay in you replying to any correspondence. I had not intended to write to you again until after I had received your reply to my email of 11/12/09 (copied below). However, I wanted to place on the record, direct to you my concerns on a potentially very serious matter.
I wrote to you following the publication, at Parliament's website, of the most recent expense claims by MPs on Thursday 10/12/09. I, and others, had read a hand-written note on your House of Commons notepaper, dated 02/05/09, declaring that two of children where staying with you at the tax-payer funded two bedroom flat. This note was the last document in the file for the new “Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure“ for 2009/2010 – the file named: Oliver_Heald_0910_PAAE.pdf. The current version is available online here: http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allo...
However, that hand-written note has been removed form the published file – a file forming a public record of your expenses and the supporting documentation. The file was removed sometime between Thu 10/12/09 and Sunday 13/12/09.
Fortunately, others have recorded the existence of the note in the original file published on Thursday. There is an article at The Cambridge News website: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_cambridge/displayarticle.asp?id=...
… and the hand-written note itself is available online at the Guardian website: http://mps-expenses2.guardian.co.uk/page/28288/
This expunging of the public record raises some serious questions. After all, these files are published in order to aid the public in understanding MPs' claims specifically and to aid openness and transparency more generally and any tampering with such documents post-publication needs an explanation.
1.Please confirm whether or not you had anything whatsoever to do with the removal of this document from the file in question. If you had nothing to do with it I must urge you to investigate or demand an investigation as a matter of priority. Please then – either through the results of any investigation, or your knowledge of the incident, answer these additional questions.
2.Who requested the removal of the hand-written note and why?
3.Who authorised the removal of the note and on what basis?
4.Will the note – acting as it does as an important supporting document to help explain your expenses (particularly why some bills are divided three ways) be re-instated to the public record? If not – why not?
Please Mr Heald, do consider when replying that this is a serious matter. Sitting as you do on The Standards Committee at Parliament, you appreciate more than others how important openness and transparency are. I should imagine that you could not fail to be embarrassed by this development (even if you have nothing to do with the disappearence of this note) and that you will will want to provide the fullest and most frank response possible.
FULL NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
Mr Heald's Response
Received via email @ 12:05
Dear Mr Fairbairn,
Thank you for your condolences.
My claims have now been rigorously audited by Sir Thomas Legg QC and an independent team of accountants and you will recall that the claims were also examined by David Cameron’s external audit team. I have been given a clean bill of health by each, with the claims decided to be both within the rules and not excessive. I am not being asked to make any repayments.
The letter of 2nd May 2009 related to the claim for April 2009 and accompanied it. There was no written guidance about reductions to be made where adult children stayed in an MP’s flat. I took advice from Fees Office, because 2 of my children stayed for two nights per week each in April. The advice was to reduce the utility bills accordingly. I reduced them by more than necessary. In later months, I made similar reductions for similar reasons.
I have not been in London overnight a great deal since the summer and have therefore not claimed any Additional Costs Allowance since August 2009.
The April 2009 claim and accompanying documents were wrongly included in the 2008/2009 file when first put on line. I brought this to Fees Office’s attention and asked for them to be in 2009/2010 file. I have not seen the latest version.
Yours sincerely,
Oliver Heald MP
Member of Parliament for North East Hertfordshire