Former immigration minister Mark Harper used expenses to pay illegal cleaner

Mark Harper, the former immigration minister, claimed more than £2,000 in parliamentary expenses to pay an illegal immigrant to clean his home.

The Telegraph has learnt that Mr Harper’s cleaner was Isabella Acevedo, who was paid £22 a week to clean and iron at his Westminster flat.

She is known to work for a number of people in the complex, which is popular with MPs, raising the prospect of other politicians being drawn into the affair.

Mr Harper quit as immigration minister on Saturday after it was confirmed that Ms Acevedo was not legally permitted to remain in the UK.

He insisted that he had not broken any law, but was resigning because he felt he had to maintain higher standards than other people in immigration matters.

His swift resignation has been praised by Tory colleagues, and a Cabinet minister predicted a quick return to office. However, some lawyers believe that the MP could yet face legal action.

Parliamentary records seen by the Daily Telegraph confirm that Mr Harper paid the cleaner using Commons expenses after taking her on in April 2007. The cleaner was working at Mr Harper’s flat in the Westminster Square development near Waterloo station.

The complex, where one-bedroom flats can sell for £500,000, has been home to several other MPs in recent years.

Mr Harper began submitting expenses claims, including invoices, to the Commons Fees Office in April 2007. Ms Acevedo was paid £30 a week for four hours’ work, although Mr Harper claimed only £22 for each visit.

For the next two years, Mr Harper claimed between £88 and £176 each month for cleaning and ironing.

In June 2008, the Commons Fees Office wrongly repaid him for the full £30 for one visit, leading Mr Harper to complain and ask the authorities to take back £8.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10627741/Former-immigration-minister-Mark-Harper-used-expenses-to-pay-illegal-cleaner.html

The taxpayer ended up footing the bill for the cleaner's wages.

So they are above cleaning up for themselves in a one bedroom flat and we have to pay for it! FFS!

When is all this Tory cheating, cutting corners and sleaze all going to end?

...£22 per week he paid her?, from expenses too!!

What a tight arse and robbing the taxpayer yet again.

Typical greedy goon paying a pittance , and I wonder if he knew she was here illegally?, illegally or not, £22 per week is a piss take for someone with his financial stature, even if it was only a few hours a week.

No conscience obviously.
At least he is gone.

To be honest i am prepared to cut him some slack

He did make checks, although the information given to him turned out to be forgeries
And when he became immigration minister, he did further checks that is when he became aware of the deception
The whole problem is that the further checks he did when he became immigration minister where presumably using resources that his position granted him
These extra checks and diligence are not generally available to the average employer
And given as he is trying to make employers more diligent in checking up work status of immigrants with limited resources he fell foul of his own plan

But he resigned straight away no if or but`s that's more than you can say for some of them when they fu&k up
so give him credit for that ..

The £22 a week wage is pitiful and exploitative IMHO and smacks of the Torys hypocrisy towards the working man or woman in this case
work them hard pay as little as possible

wonder why he cant do his own ironing and cleaning .£22 a week