Jacqui Smith’s expenses and more on Lord Taylor leave critics fuming
The nasty smell surrounding Gordon Brown's government refuses to go away. After the Mail on Sunday's disclosure that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has been able to claim £116,000 in Parliamentary expenses by classifying her sister's London house as her main property, the Mole has come across evidence of how one Labour peer earns his fees for lobbying ministers on behalf of big business.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn is one of the four Labour peers accused by the Sunday Times last month of taking money in return for lobbying for changes in legislation - a charge they all deny.
Now a Parliamentary written answer to a question by a Lancashire Tory MP reveals that Lord Taylor acted as a go-between for a meeting between the Texas-based energy giant Canatxx – for whom he worked for six years as a paid advisor - and officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government two months after a Canatxx planning application for a controversial gas storage plant was rejected by the Government in October 2007.
Lord Taylor, a former leader of Blackburn council, declared his appointment as a paid adviser to Canatxx Energy Ventures in the register of interests for the House of Lords. (The company recently revealed that it had stopped using his services until the 'cash for amendments' charges are fully investigated.)
Canatxx wanted to build the £300m underground natural gas storage facility at Preesall near Garstang in Lancashire. The planning application was refused on October 16, 2007, but Lord Taylor then asked Baroness Andrews, the Communities minister in the Lords, for a meeting between the company and her officials.
In last week's written answer to Ben Wallace, Tory MP for Lancaster and Wyre, Communities Minister Sadiq Khan confirmed: "Representatives of Canatxx met policy officials on December 6, 2007 to discuss general policy on gas storage facilities." Wallace has demanded publication of the minutes of that meeting but has yet to receive a formal response to that demand.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities told the Lancashire Evening Post last week that Lord Taylor's employment as a 'non-parliamentary consultant' with Canatxx was known at the time of the approach and that the Preesall planning application was not discussed during the meeting. He said: "It was absolutely clear he was working on the company's behalf. We never discuss planning decisions that have been made."
However, Canatxx had not dropped its plans to built at Preesall: the company is expected to submit a new application this month which will address the planning criticisms raised in 2007.
Readers of the Mole may recognise the name Canatxx. It was the same company that donated £3,000 towards a party to celebrate the Justice Secretary Jack Straw's 25th anniversary as an MP for - yes, you guessed it - Blackburn.
Straw was ticked off by a Commons watchdog committee only last month for failing to properly declare the money. The MPs were particularly surprised at Straw's failure, given he was the Home Secretary who introduced the reform requiring such disclosures.
Meanwhile, the Jacqui Smith story has raised criticism that while she may not have broken any rules, her behaviour is morally questionable. Basically, she has nominated her ‘digs’ at her sister’s house in London as her main residence. This has enabled her to bank up to £24,000 a year in Commons expenses to run her family home in Redditch under the ‘second homes allowance’ scheme. Records show that between 2001 and 2007, she claimed a total of £782,000 in Commons expenses - with £116,000 under the second home allowance.
Smith appears to be claiming the London digs as her main residence on the basis that she spends "the majority of her time" in London. Yet her website says "she still lives in Redditch". And while a spokesman for Smith said she "makes a contribution to the household" in London, they could not confirm whether she paid her sister any rent.
On Sunday night, Smith insisted she had fully abided by the Parliamentary rules. But Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group, told the Daily Mail: "Many people looking at this situation will consider it morally questionable that Jacqui Smith should have claimed this allowance."
THE MOLE: DISCLOSURE
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 9, 2009
The Mole: Jack Straw’s shocking lapse
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