Danczuk asks Rowen expenses questions

Simon Danczuk

Following the publication on Rochdale Online of local MP's expenses claims, Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate Simon Danczuk has asked Paul Rowen to assure constituents that his Parliamentary expenses are not being used for political campaigning purposes.

The latest figures to be released from Parliament show that Paul Rowen’s annual expenses increased to £153,338 from £147,243 the previous year. This puts him in the top 10 per cent of MPs claiming the highest amounts of expenses. Mr Rowen’s expenses were nearly £18,000 more than the Prime Minister’s and included £28,850 spent on office running costs and £8,378 on postage.

Mr Danczuk said: “There have been concerns rightly raised about abuses of the Parliamentary expenses system and it is only right that our MP abides by the rules. When stories emerge of a member of Paul Rowen’s staff, David Hennigan, acting as Liberal Democrat press officer in the Sedgefield bi-election, the question of whether public money is being used for party political promotion must be asked.

“We have already seen the House of Commons Portcullis logo used for party political purposes on a recent Rochdale Liberal Democrat mailing and Paul Rowen should know that this is wholly inappropriate.”

Under Parliamentary changes made to allowances earlier this year, MPs can now also receive money for websites to boost public understanding of Parliament.

When this was announced, the then Commons Leader, Jack Straw said the money should not be used as “a propaganda tool for the use of incumbents".

Mr Danczuk added that if this public money was being used to fund Paul Rowen’s website then he believes the site  contravenes Parliamentary guidelines. He said: “At the time there were warnings that websites would be used for shameless self promotion and I believe Paul Rowen would be guilty of this. Rather than contributing to a better understanding of what Parliament is about his website is being used to make untruthful attacks against me.

“Could he therefore clarify if he is receiving public money for the maintenance of this website?”

However, Mr Danczuk has himself come in for heavy criticism for seeking answers to questions when he is unprepared to answer questions asked of him. For many months a series of questions has been put to Mr Danczuk on the Rochdale Online Message Board and Mr Danczuk has ignored them all.

In an attempt to see if Mr Danczuk would answer the questions if put to him in writing, Father Paul Daly, himself a staunch Labour supporter, put pen to paper with all the questions Mr Danczuk had failed to answer online, including a number of his own, for example, "Would you vote to replace Trident with new British nuclear weapons of mass destruction?".

It took Mr Danczuk a month to reply to Father Daly but in the reply he again failed to answer the questions asked of him.

Commenting on the lack of answers, Father Daly, who is a parish priest in Heywood, said: "Thank God, he will never represent me since I live in a different constituency. I thought that the Rochdale Labour Party had had several strong candidates to choose from. You'd imagine, from his arrogant reluctance to answer questions that he was the only applicant!"

Lawrence Glendinning who lives in the Rochdale constituency, and who has posed one of the questions said: "I am a Rochdale resident. So Simon you have chosen not to answer my question. That is highly ignorant of you."

Linda Phillips, another resident in the Rochdale constituency Mr Danczuk seeks to represent said of Mr Danczuk's questions to Mr Rowen about his expenses: "I wonder if Simon would be happy to wait the same time to get a response to his questions as it took him to (sort of) reply to Father Daly and would he be satisfied with a like response?"

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Note: Mr Rowen has been asked for a response and this will be added to this article once available.