On 15th February, it was reported that Leicester East MP was allegedly in breach of the MPs’ Code of Conduct after she reportedly failed to declare payments that she had received for continuing her work as a councillor in London.
MPs’ income, beyond their £82,000 salaries, must be recorded within 28 days on their register of interests. But, an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone has found she did not do this with eight sets of allowances she received from Islington Borough Council last year, Leicester Mercury reported.
According to the newsweekly, she receives £876.56 a month in allowances from the Council but from December she stopped registering the payments until she was informed of the investigation. Ms Webbe has been suspended by the Labour Party pending a trial on a harassment charge.
Ms Stone’ report and findings which have been published on the House of Commons website, noted, “Ms Webbe has acknowledged and apologised for her breach of the rules, and committed to take appropriate steps to avoid a recurrence. I consider this breach to be at the less serious end of the spectrum.”
In her explanation to Ms Stone she reportedly said, "I was unaware that I was in breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. As a new Member of Parliament, I failed to fully understand the requirement in respect of registering Members’ Financial Interests and had wrongly assumed this was an annual requirement and further had not understood that no exceptions exist.
“Notwithstanding the public health emergency caused by the coronavirus pandemic, I accept that I should have registered sooner remuneration received between January and August 2020. Further, by the time of the national lockdown I had not yet appointed anything close to a full complement of staff consequently my own workload was huge and I was working seven days a week with less than 4 hours’ sleep a day and still learning all the rules and workings of parliament."
Ms Webbe has previously told LeicestershireLive she had intended to step down fully from Islington council in May 2020 when elections were planned. However, they were cancelled because of the pandemic.
She has asked the registrar to record the monthly Islington allowances until around May, when elections are planned, or sooner if a by-election is called.
