I wrote to you on 2 March 2015, saying that I would begin an inquiry into your complaint that Mr John Woodcock MP misused House of Commons pre-paid envelopes by enclosing raffle tickets with a letter about Furness General Hospital, contrary to the rules of the House. I have been in correspondence with Mr Woodcock and he has acknowledged that this happened and it should not have done. Mr Woodcock told me that, at the time, he had considered it appropriate to include the raffle tickets but he has accepted my ruling and offered his unreserved apologies. Mr Woodcock has accepted that 3,312 postage pre-paid envelopes were used in contravention of the rules of the House, at a total cost of 1,881.22 and he has agreed to arrange for that sum to be refunded to the House of Commons. I have, therefore, upheld your complaint. I consider that Mr Woodcock has made an acceptable response to it. I accept the rectification action as an appropriate resolution and I now regard the matter as closed. I will report the outcome briefly to the Committee on Standards. In due course, this letter, and the relevant evidence (a copy of which I enclose), will be made available on y parliamentary web pages. My letter of 17 March (page 10 of the enclosure) sets out in more detail the reasons for my conclusion. I am copying this letter to Mr Woodcock.
Members are personally responsible and accountable for ensuring that their use of any expenses, allowances, facilities and services provided from the public purse is in accordance with the rules laid down on these matters. Members shall ensure that their use of public resources is always in support of their parliamentary duties. It should not confer any undue personal or financial benefit on themselves or anyone else, or confer undue advantage on a political organisation. [my emphasis added] 2. Members should always behave with probity and integrity when using House-provided stationery and postage. Members should regard themselves as personally responsible and accountable for the use of House-provided stationery and postage. They should not exploit the system for personal financial advantage, nor (by breaching the rules in paragraph 3 below) to confer an undue advantage on a political organisation. 3. House-provided stationery and pre-paid envelopes are provided only for the performance of a Member s Parliamentary functions. In particular, this excludes using stationery or postage: In connection with work for or at the behest of a political party (including fund-raising for a political party, advocating membership of a political party or supporting the return of any person to public office... In addition:
Items which may not be sent in pre-paid envelopes on their own, such as newsletters or cards, must not be attached to correspondence legitimately sent using pre-paid envelopes. Examples of proper use of stationery and pre-paid envelopes include:. Correspondence with constituents, including contact by Members about a specific issue with people who have not previously contacted them and questionnaires and surveys (but not newsletters, annual reports or general updates on a range of issues). Before agreeing to bring someone beyond the areas of the Palace which are open to the public as a matter of course, it is important that each one of us is as satisfied as we can be that our guests are not going to abuse the privileged access to parts of the House which they are being given. I must stress that the sponsoring Member is personally responsible to the House as a whole for the conduct of those to whom they give such access,, whether, for example, in sponsoring them to sit in front of the glass screen in the chamber or to use any of the House s dining facilities. My advice to all Members is therefore simple. In deciding on access, a good rule of thumb is: You must know the individual concerned and know that person to be of good character; simply knowing of the person is not enough. I believe also that is in the interests of the House as a whole for Members to refrain from offering privileged access in raffles or auctions, where you cannot know in advance the identity of the winner and may find yourself embarrassed as a result. 1. How many copies of the letter were sent to others of your constituents? 2. Have you have sent other letters with similar enclosures to constituents using House of Commons pre-paid envelopes/paper in the past year; if so please provide details, including numbers.
3. Whether parliamentary staff time paid for from public funds was used in the preparation of this (and subject to your response to question 2, any similar) mailing. 4. Whether you claimed the cost of the paper used in this mailing (and any other similar mailing) from IPSA. 5. How it came about that you sent this letter and enclosure in a House of Commons pre-paid envelope. 6. The raffle tickets say that 50% of the proceeds will be donated to the Hospital Equipment Fund for Furness ; how will the balance be dispersed? 7. The prizes include a tour of Westminster, including afternoon tea ; what are the arrangements for this and how the cost will be met?
Thank you for your letter of 16 March 2015. The information you provided is very helpful. The of this letter is to share with you my provisional view on the allegation that you misused House of Commons resources by enclosing raffle tickets in House-provided pre-paid postage envelopes, and to move to consider the resolution of this complaint.. My decision Thank you for answering my questions so clearly and, in particular, for the explanation of how you came to the raffle tickets in this way and why you understood this was an acceptable use of House-provided resources. After very careful consideration, I have decided that this was, nonetheless, a breach of paragraph 15 of the House of Commons Code of Conduct. The reason my decision The Code says that Members should ensure that their use of public resources is always in support of parliamentary duties. It should not confer undue advantage or personal financial gain on themselves or anyone else, or confer undue advantage on a political organisation. [My added emphasis.] I accept that your support for the Save Furness General Hospital Campaign was part of your activity and that it was within the rules and the Code of Conduct for you to use House-provided envelopes to write to constituents about this specific issue.
However, public resources are provided to Members to support their parliamentary duties, not to subsidise campaigns that a Member chooses to support. I consider the enclosure of raffle tickets to raise funds for the Save Furness General Hospital campaign and for the Hospital Equipment Fund for Furness goes beyond supporting your parliamentary and has conferred an undue financial advantage on both organisations. In essence, costs associated with these organisations fund-raising were subsidised by House of Commons resources. I consider that to be a breach of the House of Commons Code of Conduct, which prohibits the use of public resources to confer undue advantage on anyone else. You have explained the steps that you planned to take to ensure that the spirit of Mr Speaker s guidance on offering tours of the Palace/tea on the Parliamentary Estate would be heeded and given me an assurance that you were meeting the costs associated with that raffle prize. You have explained that you were not offering as a raffle prize something otherwise available at nil cost. While I share Mr Speaker s concern about the use of House facilities as a raffle or auction prize, I do not consider any further action is required on this occasion. Moving to I need now to consider how to resolve this matter. If you were to accept my provisional conclusion, with your agreement, I would be ready to consider resolving this matter through the rectification procedure. Under Standing Order 150, I am able to rectify a complaint in these circumstances without submitting a full and formal memorandum to the Committee on Standards. I would instead write to the complainant, following which the matter would be closed. I inform the Committee of the outcome and my letter to the complainant and the relevant correspondence is in due course published on my webpages. You have apologised for any improper conduct I might identify and I am grateful to you for that. I may implement the rectification procedure, only if you accept that you were in breach of the Code of Conduct. The Committee would normally expect the Member to have apologised and to have repaid any sums due as part of the rectification. It would also be helpful to have a commitment to avoid a recurrence. (I should emphasise that you should agree to closure under this procedure only if you genuinely accept that you have acted in breach of the rules. If you do not, then it is proper for this matter to be referred to the Committee on Standards for them to make a ruling.) If you were to agree to the of the complaint on the basis of a rectification, I will prepare a letter to send the complainant. While the content is, of course, a matter for me, I would show it to you so that you could comment if necessary on its factual accuracy. I would then write to the complainant closing the complaint.
It be very helpful if you could let me know by close of business on 24 March 2015 whether you would like me to rectify the complaint on the basis I have suggested. If you agree to the rectification, the refund due to the House of Commons is 1,881.22 and should be paid by means of a cheque made payable to:. This is the cost of 3,312 envelopes (@ 9.50 per 250) and postage (@ 53p per envelope). The full amount is refundable because paragraph 4 of the stationery rules makes clear that items which may not be sent in pre-paid envelopes on their own, such a newsletters or cards, must not be attached to correspondence legitimately sent in pre-paid envelopes. I am most for your prompt and full co-operation with this inquiry. Thank you for your letter dated 17 March 2015 and for consideration of this matter. Naturally I am disappointed by your decision because I believed that including raffle slips in my campaign update (which you helpfully identified was itself an acceptable use of parliamentary resources) would be an effective way to support my constituents on an issue of huge importance to them, as well as helping raise many hundreds of pounds for new medical equipment for our local hospital. However, I accept your ruling and apologise for the breach which you identified, as well as for the time you have had to devote to investigating it. I have taken immediate steps for repayment of the 1,881.22 you deem appropriate. Many thanks and apologies again
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