Secretaries expose MPs' abuse of office privileges

MPs are using House of Commons secretaries and office facilities, which should be used exclusively for Parliamentary work, for their private business interests.

The Independent has learned that at the private annual meeting of the Secretaries and Research Assistants Council, the 15-strong body which represents the bulk of the 651 MPs' staff, the secretaries took the unprecedented step of raising the issue of private work with the Commons authorities.

Secretaries interviewed by the Independent complained that their MPs' consultancies and directorships were unfairly adding to their workload. One said that since her MP had become an adviser to a large industrial company, she had been expected to make extra calls, deal with his business correspondence and filing, and arrange meetings with the company.

Another, who works for a senior Tory, said she spent a good deal of her time "juggling with his diary" to accommodate his newly acquired business posts and doing letters that "have nothing to do with his constituency". He had asked her to undertake research to help his outside companies. "He's always having me ferret about for them," she said.

Another secretary said the problem had become so bad that she knew of colleagues "who have given up the ghost and left - it all became too much what with constituents, TV appearances and lobbyists also demanding more than ever before".

MPs are supposed to use their secretaries for Parliamentary and constituency work. If they ask their secretaries to handle outside interests, they should pay them extra. Secretaries contacted by the Independent said this rarely happened. They are employed by individual MPs but paid by the Commons. The Commons authorities are meant to ensure that MPs do not use their privileges - free secretaries, research assistants, offices, phones and postage - for their outside interests.

A senior official in the Fees Office, which pays secretaries' salaries, said the rules were clear: "Secretaries are paid for any work which the MP needs to be done here and in his constituency on anything of a Parliamentary or constituency nature. Anything they claim from us must be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred on Parliamentary business."

MPs using their Commons office to deal with their private business was, the official said, "reprehensible - they're told to keep offices outside".

Secretaries, who spoke on condition that they were not identified, said they had not complained earlier because they felt trapped. They could not go to the Westminster authorities for fear of upsetting their MP and losing their jobs.

It was a mistake, one secretary said, to imagine that consultancies required little or no work. "Most consultancies demand one form of contact a week, normally through a lunch or some form of meeting." That meeting - arranged in Commons time - would often be followed by a letter or two - again written in Commons time.

Several MPs contacted by the Independent admitted that their secretaries occasionally handled non-parliamentary work, but denied that it was a significant matter. Sir Archie Hamilton, the former defence minister, who has 12 outside business interests listed in the Commons register, said that his secretary did some "limited" typing for his private work. He did not pay her extra for this. "I don't pay her anything different, it's absorbed into what I'm asking her to do."

Joy Raymond, chairman of the Secretaries and Assistant Researchers Council, refused to comment.