Commons Committee order Maria Miller to repay £5,800 over-claimed expenses

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Commons Committee on Standards have ordered Culture Secretary Maria Miller to repay the over claimed expenses amount of £5,800 and apologise to MPs.

While she was cleared of the central charge of deliberately submitting expenses to which she was not entitled, the Committee have said her attitude to the inquiry breached ministers’ code of conduct. 

In a report, the £5,800 Mrs Miller requires to pay back will cover over-claiming of mortgage expenses after she failed to cut her claims when interest rates fell.

A probe into Mrs Miller’s claims was prompted in December 2012 following a formal complaint launched by Labour MP John Mann. It has been reported that the Culture Minister had allowed her parents to live in a property on which she claimed £90,718 in second home allowances on a second home she owned in Wimbledon, south London between 2005 and 2009. The committee has however, rejected the claims that she or her parents had benefited financially from the arrangements.

The report tells: “There can be no criticism of [Mrs Miller] in relation to her personal, caring responsibilities and her desire to combine these with the role of an elected representative.” 

The panel has said that Mrs Miller “did not pay as close attention to the rules of the House as she should have done.” However, she did not misuse parliamentary allowances to defray her parents’ living costs.

Based on the finding, the committee has established: “If the Commissioner had been able swiftly to establish the facts relating to Mrs Miller’s mortgages, and had been able to gather the documentation which would have allowed her (and has allowed us) to judge the relationship between the changes in bank base rate and the interest charged to Mrs Miller, this might have been a relatively minor matter.” 

However, it has also indicated the troubles and hindrances during the investigation causing “delay and difficulty”, due to “incomplete documentation and fragmentary information”. 

“Mrs Miller has to carry significant responsibility for that [the delay].

“Officials would press her for information and the information that was provided appears to have been the minimum necessary.” 

In an address to the Commons on Thursday, Mrs Miller has stated: “The committee has recommended that I apologise to the House for my attitude to the commissioner’s inquiries, and I of course unreservedly apologise. 

“I fully accept the recommendations of the committee and thank them for bringing this matter to an end.” 

Prime Minister David Cameron has said he supports Mrs Miller and admits that she is doing an excellent job as she has taken full responsibility of her mistakes and apologised accordingly which was “absolutely the right” way.

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