Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 3:32 pm ar 23 Chwefror 2009.
Greg Hands
Shadow Minister (Treasury)
3:32,
23 Chwefror 2009
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I raise with you a letter that has been written by my parliamentary neighbour, Mr. Slaughter, which has gone to tens of thousands of my constituents, outlining his reasons for his resignation as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Malloch-Brown? It is written on House of Commons Portcullis paper, which seeks to lend the authority of the House. In a letter to my constituents, the hon. Gentleman says that he has been their elected representative for 25 years and he is looking forward to fighting the next election as Labour's candidate for the new Hammersmith seat. He goes on to say:
"My first duty as an MP is to you", but that is written to people who are not his constituents. May we have a ruling on whether the rules on writing to other Members' constituents are properly enforced in the House?
Annotations
Brian O'Farrell
Posted on 27 Chw 2009 12:59 pm (Report this annotation)
Thank you Mr Hands for bringing this up in Parliament. I am constituent of yours and didn't think it was appropriate to essentially receive a first manifesto pledge from a candidate in the next election on official documents.
One further question, which I will email yo.
What was the cost to the tax payer for those letters?