Conway overpaid student son as researcher

Jan 29 2008 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

A FORMER Tyneside councillor faces being suspended from Parliament for 10 days after he used taxpayers’ money to overpay his son as a personal assistant while he was a student at Newcastle University.

Derek Conway, once the top Tory on Tyne and Wear County Council, and now a prominent Conservative MP, last night apologised unreservedly to the Commons after a committee decided his son was “all but invisible” throughout his employment.

Mr Conway confessed to letting down his family “very badly indeed”.

The former Tyne and Wear opposition leader, who grew up on Gateshead’s Beacon Lough council estate, paid his son Frederick more than £40,000 between September 2004 and August 2007. The payments included bonuses of £10,065.

As well as recommending a 10-day suspension, the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said Mr Conway should repay £3,962.97 in respect of the bonuses – rising to £7,161.05 if the House was unable to reclaim the tax and National Insurance – and £6,000 in respect of the salary.

The standards committee report on the Old Bexley and Sidcup MP’s family arrangements described the payments to Frederick, referred to as FC, as “astonishing”.

The committee of MPs decided Frederick “had little or no contact with his father’s office, either in the House or in the constituency”. The report adds: “No record of the work he is supposed to have carried out, or the hours kept. The only evidence available to us of work carried out was that provided by FC and his family.”

It said: “This arrangement was, at the least, an improper use of parliamentary allowances: at worst, it was a serious diversion of public funds. Our view is that the reality may well be somewhere between the two.”

Newcastle Central MP Jim Cousins said he was astonished by the revelation.

Mr Cousins, a councillor on the now defunct authority at the same time as Mr Conway, said: “Frankly there has been a great deal of disbelief that this has happened now. It is obviously not the simple case of giving a bit of work experience over the summer, this was quite prolonged.

“I think given the recent events, there can be little option but to suspend him as we are trying to show people we are putting our house in order. I remember one incident from the county council days, many years back now, during one winter when Derek noted that the council staff had cleared the snow from the way to the chamber while the streets around Newcastle had not yet been gritted. He said then that members should not get any special favours from anyone. I’ve always remembered that. So it just makes it all the more surprising to see him where he is now.”

In a Commons apology Mr Conway said: “The committee was entitled to reach the conclusion it did and I have accepted their criticisms in full. I unreservedly apologise to the House for my administrative shortcomings and the misjudgments I made.”

He added: “The House will comprehend the impact this matter has on me personally, but also on my family. I have let them down very badly indeed and no judgment from any quarter could be more harsh than that which I apply to myself.”

In Mr Conway’s statement, he said: “The commissioner in his report accepted that there was a need for the tasks I had set my son, that he was qualified to undertake them and that he did indeed do so. The committee has questioned the extent of that work and I accept they are entitled to have reached that conclusion.”

Mr Conway said his son worked about 17 hours a week for him.

MPs will vote later this week on the committee’s recommendations.

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Life and times of politician

1972: The 19-year-old Derek Conway was then the chairman of the Northern Young Conservatives.

September 1974: Mr Conway, then 21, elected as councillor on the Gateshead Enfield ward. His Conservative views put him in opposition with his uncle Frank who was then a Labour councillor.

October 1974: Lost out in the General Election battle for the Durham seat.

March 1976: The 23-year-old, then deputy opposition leader, is appointed chairman of Gateshead Conservatives.

April 1979: Defeats his party boss for the leadership of the opposition group, sparking a long-running battle.

May 1979: Loses General Election battle for Newcastle East.

August 1979: Mr Conway is on the front-page of the News of The World after the “top Tory” splits from his then-fiancee.

January 1980: Mr Conway asks Tyne Tees weather presenter Colette Lamb to marry him after a whirlwind romance – they were married in October that year.

November 1982: Mr Conway steps down as the Conservative leader in Gateshead after being selected to fight for the Shrewsbury seat at the next General Election.

June 1983: Mr Conway elected MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham. This follows a political row in the North after it emerged he had not stood down as a Gateshead councillor while campaigning in Shrewsbury.

1993: John Major makes Mr Conway a Government Whip.

May 1997: Mr Conway joins the many Conservative MPs who lose their seat to New Labour.

June 2001: Mr Conway becomes MP for the south London seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup made vacant by the retirement of the former Prime Minister Edward Heath.