THE Conservative Party was facing renewed sleaze allegations last night after Westminster's standards watchdog announced he was to investigate the chairman, Caroline Spelman, over payments to her nanny.
John Lyon, the parliamentary standards commissioner, said there were exceptional reasons to conduct an inquiry despite the matter being beyond the normal seven-year deadline for investigations.
His recommendation was supported by the ten MPs who m
ake up the Commons standards and privileges committee, allowing the inquiry to proceed.
Mrs Spelman initially admitted employing the nanny, Tina Haynes, between 1997 and 1998 for secretarial work as well as for childcare outside school hours.
But it emerged at the weekend that she had in fact been employed until 1999 for constituency work – despite being based in Mrs Spelman's family home in Kent, 140 miles from her Meriden constituency in the West Midlands.
MPs are not allowed to use parliamentary expenses to pay personal bills.
After the story broke, Mrs Spelman had approached Mr Lyon asking him to investigate the matter in an attempt to prove her innocence.
A statement from his office said: "Having carefully considered the matter, the commissioner has recommended to the committee that, exceptionally, he should conduct an inquiry."
Mrs Spelman said: "Having personally referred this matter to the commissioner in the first place, I welcome his decision to look at it further and will of course co-operate in every way."
Mrs Spelman stopped paying her nanny after the then Conservative Chief Whip, James Arbuthnot, told her that the payments could be "open to misinterpretation".
She had recently been asked by the Tory leader, David Cameron, to improve the party's record on expenses. One MP, Derek Conway, was thrown out of the party after paying his son in exchange for little or no work.
Mr Cameron has also been embarrassed by his MEPs – last week Giles Chichester resigned when it emerged he transferred more than £400,000 of staff expenses into a family company.
The full article contains 333 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
