Hermon Receives Apology on Expenses Story  

North Down’s Independent MP, Lady Hermon, has described as “wholly untrue” reports in today’s press that she submitted a claim for a 1 penny telephone call in her Parliamentary expenses. Speaking from her North Down Constituency Office, Lady Hermon said: “At no stage have I ever submitted a claim for a 1p phonecall, and reports that I have done so are wholly untrue.  This was an administrative error, and I have now received a fulsome apology and explanation from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which administers the MPs’ expenses system.” Its Operations Director, Mr Scott Woolveridge, has confirmed that Lady Hermon … “did not submit an expense claim to IPSA for 1p.”  He also went on to express IPSA’s “apologies for the way (it had) dealt with this,” and accepted that IPSA … “would have been better to have taken a different course...