Maria Miller’s Daily Grind

David Cameron has given his support to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Maria Miller, after the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards opened an inquiry into her expenses. The prime minister said his culture secretary had "excellent answers" to questions about her expenses claims. Labour MP John Mann submitted a complaint about her claims on Tuesday. It follows reports she had allowed her parents to live in a property on which she claimed £90,718 in second home allowances during the last parliament.

Steve Bell in The Independent © Independent Newspaper

Mrs Miller has said her expenses were "absolutely in order" and "in complete accordance with the rules". Mr Cameron, speaking as he arrived in Brussels for a European summit, said Mrs Miller was doing "an excellent job". The Daily Telegraph reported that Mrs Miller had been claiming expenses for her second home in south London, while her parents were living there, with her "main home" located in her Basingstoke constituency.

Her parents, John and June Lewis, have apparently been living at the property since selling their home in Wales in 1996. Following the report, Mr Mann wrote to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, saying the arrangement was "identical" to that which meant former Labour minister Tony McNulty was required to pay back more than £13,000 in expenses in 2009. The commissioner ruled that Mr McNulty had effectively "subsidised" his parent's living costs from the public purse.

Mrs Miller said this rented barn near Basingstoke was her main home, 

while saying the Wimbledon house where her parents lived 

was her second home, on which she claimed expenses

But, during exchanges on future business in the Commons, Labour's Angela Eagle raised a follow-up report in the Daily Telegraph, which said an aide to Mrs Miller had called the journalist working on the expenses story to "flag up" the culture secretary's involvement in on-going negotiations on the future of press regulation. The Daily Telegraph has also reported that Downing Street communications Chief Craig Oliver mentioned press regulation in a telephone call to the newspaper's editor about the expenses story. Ms Eagle, the shadow Commons leader, said: "The government seems to want to threaten the press with statutory underpinning to control the news agenda."

"The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that between 2005 and 2009 Miller claimed more than £90,000 for a house in Wimbledon where her elderly parents lived with the rest of her family. Miller's office told the newspaper that her parents were living "as dependents", the arrangements were approved by the parliamentary fees office and that they were audited on two occasions."

However, she admitted one of the ‘independent’ audits was carried out by the Conservative Party. Asked why she suddenly stopped claiming on the Wimbledon home in 2009 as the wider expenses scandal erupted, she replied: ‘Because I think there was a lot of concern about the rules and, er, a lot of concern about, you know, the whole issue, and it’s something I felt that I didn’t want to be, sort of, mixed up in, the fact that I ... I just made that decision.’

"What these examples show is that we have, in some ways, created a welfare gap in this country between those living long-term in the welfare system and those outside it.

Those within it grow up with a series of expectations: you can have a home of your own, the state will support you whatever decisions you make, you will always be able to take out no matter what you put in.

This has sent out some incredibly damaging signals.

That it pays not to work.

That you are owed something for nothing.

It gave us millions of working-age people sitting at home on benefits even before the recession hit.

It created a culture of entitlement.

And it has led to huge resentment amongst those who pay into the system, because they feel that what they’re having to work hard for, others are getting without having to put in the effort."

- Speech by Prime Minister David Cameron on welfare, at Bluewater, Kent on Monday 25th June, 2012.

René Magritte - an eye for the Surreal!

Mrs Miller hails from the proud City of Wolverhampton

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/wolverhampton-is-worst.html