I’ve already broken this development over at The Ministry, due to LibCon being offline for a while this afternoon, but I can now confirm that Nadine Dorries is being asked to give a formal response, by the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards, to the complaint lodged by Sunny a little under a month ago in regards to her apparent failure to observe parliamentary regulations relating to the content of her official website, which she appears to fund from her parliamentary allowances.

The complaint, which is being dealt with under the new Communications Allowance regulations, alleges that Dorries’s personal ‘blog’, which is incorporated into her official website and which, it appears from the home page, is/was funded using the Incidental Expenses Provision, breaches regulations governing the content of websites funded from parliamentary allowances and the use of the House Emblem, i.e. the official portcullis device.

Specifically, these regulations do not permit MPs to use either the House Emblem or their parliamentary allowances when publishing material for any the following purposes:

to promote or campaign on behalf of any person seeking election

to criticise or campaign against anyone seeking election or otherwise seek to undermine the reputation of political opponents

for the purpose of advancing perspectives or arguments with the intention of promoting the interests of any political party or organisation you support, or damaging the interests of any other such party or organisation

All of which, the complaint (and accompanying evidence) shows Dorries to have carried out repeatedly over the last few months and with little or no regard for the regulations, which have been clearly set out in guidance on the use of the Communications Allowance since April 2007.

According to the leaflet which explains the enquiry process, the fact that the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards has requested a response from Dorries indicates that he is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a preliminary enquiry and this may then lead to a full investigation if the Commissioner is not satisfied with Dorries’s response to the complaint.

Should this result in a full investigation, it will be the second occasion on which Dorries has found herself facing censure by the Standards and Privileges Committee since becoming an MP in 2005.

Sunny adds:
On the procedures, which were mailed as part of the letter, Point 9 states:

Where it appears that an allegation has sufficient substance to warrant at least a preliminary enquiry, the Commissioner will inform the Member concerned of the nature of the allegation and the evidence offered in support of it, and seek a response. He will inform the Member at the earliest stage of the particular provisions of the Code or the Guide to the Rules which is alleged to have been breached.

In other words, our complaint did have “sufficient substance” to warrant at least a preliminary enquiry. Now let’s see what Ms Dorries has to say.