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British Culture Secretary Quits Amid Uproar Over Expenses British Culture Secretary Quits Amid Uproar Over Expenses
(about 9 hours later)
LONDON — Britain’s culture secretary resigned from the cabinet on Wednesday after angering colleagues by making only a brief, 32-second public apology over her handling of an investigation into her parliamentary expenses, which she was forced to repay. An official inquiry found that she had wrongfully claimed 5,800 pounds, or about $9,700, in living expenses. LONDON — Politicians rarely like saying sorry, and generally try to put the unpleasant business behind them as quickly as possible. But 32 seconds, it seems, is a bit too quick.
In a letter released by the prime minister’s office, the culture secretary, Maria Miller, said that it had become clear “that the present situation has become a distraction from the vital work this government is doing to turn our country around.” That was all the time Maria Miller, the culture secretary in Prime Minister David Cameron’s cabinet, took to apologize “unreservedly” last week for not cooperating fully with an investigation into her expenses. And though she repaid 5,800 pounds in excess claims, her minimalist show of contrition has now proved to be politically deadly for her, and a damaging blow for Mr. Cameron.
Ms. Miller’s resignation came hours before Prime Minister David Cameron was to answer questions in Parliament, which would most likely have been dominated by the controversy. At first, he stood by Ms. Miller, calling on critics to accept her apology and repayment and “leave it there.” But the affair kept dominating newspaper headlines for days, and Ms. Miller found little support among her colleagues in Parliament, whose reputation has yet to recover fully from a big scandal in 2009 over lawmakers’ inflated expense claims.
In her letter, Ms. Miller said that she would remain a member of Parliament and thanked Mr. Cameron for his support. Mr. Cameron said in a statement that he hoped Ms. Miller would “be able to return to serving the government on the frontbench in due course.” He added that he was sad that she was having to leave the cabinet “in these circumstances.” So on Wednesday, a few hours before Mr. Cameron was due to face questions in the House of Commons, he accepted Ms. Miller’s resignation.
Ms. Miller made a formal apology in Parliament last week. But by speaking for just 32 seconds, she prompted an avalanche of criticism and caused a mini-crisis for Mr. Cameron. Ms. Miller said in a letter released by the prime minister’s office that “the present situation has become a distraction from the vital work this government is doing to turn our country around.” Mr. Cameron said in his letter of reply that he hoped Ms. Miller, who is retaining her seat in Parliament, would “be able to return to serving the government on the front bench in due course.”
Ms. Miller’s expenses still dominated British newspaper headlines on Tuesday, and organizers of an online petition calling for her to repay more money or quit said that they had more than 150,000 signatures. In Parliament, Mr. Cameron seemed to acknowledge that the case could damage his Conservative Party. Public anger over parliamentary expenses is “still very raw, and it needs to be acted upon,” he told lawmakers.
“Her speech was so short, and so devoid of contrition, that it was more a calculated insult than an apology,” The Times of London said in an editorial. “Clearly unwilling to accept any culpability, Mrs. Miller gave the sort of non-apology that one sibling gives to another when forced by their parents to apologize in the back of the car.” The Conservative-leaning Daily Mail newspaper published an editorial Wednesday morning, before the resignation, describing the affair as a “slow-motion car crash” for Mr. Cameron, born of the failure of the British political elite to understand how toxic the 2009 expenses scandal was “or how taxpayers’ anger continues to simmer, five years on.”
The episode has revived memories of a scandal over parliamentary expenses in 2009 that led to a series of resignations and criminal prosecutions. Parliamentary support for Ms. Miller has been thin even among her political allies, many of whom agree privately with critics in the news media that she had brought criticism upon herself by failing to sound contrite. Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said Ms. Miller had given a “perfunctory and inadequate apology” and had resigned “not because of her bad conduct, but because of her bad press.”
“I can honestly say it wouldn’t be how I would have made an apology,” Esther McVey, the employment minister, said on ITV’s “Agenda” program on Monday night. On Tuesday, another Conservative lawmaker, Mark Field, described the statement as “unacceptably perfunctory.” It did not help that the first inquiry into Ms. Miller’s expenses said that, under one interpretation of the relevant rules, she had overclaimed a total of £45,000, about $75,000. The ultimate arbiter in the case, the House of Commons Committee on Standards, applied the rules less strictly and said she only needed to repay £5,800; it also cleared her of accusations that she had financed a home for her parents with public funds. But it criticized her for supplying “incomplete documentation and fragmentary information.”
Last week, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said that, under one interpretation of the rules, Ms. Miller had overclaimed a total of £45,000, mainly for mortgage payments. The claims were made under a system of allowances, which has since changed, designed to enable lawmakers to have a home in London as well as in the region they represent. Ms. Miller said she had inadvertently claimed the same amount for mortgage expenses year after year even though falling interest rates had reduced her payments.
The ultimate arbiter, the House of Commons Committee on Standards, applied a less strict interpretation of the rules and concluded that Ms. Miller should repay £5,800. It also cleared her of accusations that she had financed a home for her parents with public funds. Her resignation gave Mr. Cameron a managerial headache, prompting a government reshuffle that reduced the number of women with full Cabinet positions to three. But her replacement as culture secretary may at least offset some of the criticism directed at Mr. Cameron for surrounding himself with people from a wealthy elite: He is Sajid Javid, the son of a bus driver.
But the committee criticized her handling of the inquiry, saying that she had given the commissioner “incomplete documentation and fragmentary information.”
Ms. Miller said she had inadvertently filed the same amount in her claims despite a fall in interest rates between 2008 and 2009 that altered her mortgage repayments.
“The fact about apologies in the House of Commons is that they are always short,” said a government spokeswoman who asked not to be named, in line with policy. “She apologized unreservedly, she apologized within two hours of the report.”