MP’s staff under the spotlight!

Paul Rowen MP

Paul Rowen MP has defended his staff in the light of ongoing debate on Parliamentary Staff.  It comes in the week that Conservative MP Derek Conway was suspended from the Commons after it emerged that he had employed his sons – who failed to carry out any duties. Mr Rowen spent £79,722 last year on employing four full time members of staff and one part-time member of staff.  This was 456th out of the 646 MPs.  Jim Dobbin MP (Heywood and Middleton), who has been in the headlines this week, spent £91,141 which was 52nd highest amongst all 646 MPs.

Mr Rowen said: “I have no objections to people knowing the overall cost of staffing, which is published annually.  I employ four full-time staff members and one part-time member - none of whom are from my family.  I have no wish to reveal individual salaries of staff; the reality is that people know them through their hard work in our busy Constituency Office.  We ran a stringent recruitment process including advertising the jobs and testing the candidates, this was so that we could employ the best possible, qualified staff to do what is a very challenging job.”