Thank you for your letter of 11^th October enclosing a copy of the Parliamentary Commissioner's report to the Committee regarding the complaint against me by Cllr David Sutton of Reading Borough Council.

I am pleased to note that on the substantive points that my Parliamentary Report 1. was delivered too close to the local election campaign and 2. that it "promoted" a local election candidate, the Commissioner recommends that the complaints be dismissed. On the third complaint that my Parliamentary Report was delivered without a separate cover to a small area of my constituency, I have apologised for the error and would like to assure the Committee that this will not happen again. My most recent Parliamentary Report has been produced in an envelope in order to ensure full compliance with this rule.

However, I am concerned to note that the Commissioner has himself added a new observation which was not part of the original complaint against me. In para 68 of his report the Commissioner expresses his concern about the use of the term "Reading East Conservatives" on the front page of my Parliamentary Report alongside the Conservative Party tree logo. As explained previously to the Commissioner, the use of the logo was checked with the DFA in advance of the production of this edition of my Report. Indeed a copy of the proof of my report was sent to the DFA for approval and as a result of the suggestions received from DFA a number of minor amendments were then made. The final proof was sent to the DFA and was cleared by them in writing including the statement that "the whole publication meets the relevant criteria that would allow costs to be met from the IEP".

I note that in para 38 of the Commissioner's report the Director of Operations at the DFA is reported as saying that his staff approved the report but had not noticed the use of the words "Reading East Conservatives" and that therefore he did not feel that I "could be held responsible for the Department's mistake or that blame could be attached to [me] in this respect".

Further to this, it is also worth noting that whilst "Reading East Conservatives" is deemed unacceptable wording, para 32 of the Commissioner's report states that it is acceptable to use the word 'Conservative', as in 'the Conservative MP for…'. So the inclusion of the words "Conservative MP for Reading East" would have been deemed acceptable but "Reading East Conservatives" is not.

I would be grateful if the Committee would consider whether it is appropriate for something that was not part of the original complaint against me to be added to the findings of an investigation into that complaint. I believe that at all stages I have sought best advice and have followed it to the letter and would respectfully suggest that in cases where the guidance is less than clear a Member should be able to seek and follow guidance from the appropriate House authorities without laying himself open to subsequent criticism. I would therefore request that the Committee gives consideration to withdrawing this finding against me in its final published report.

I look forward to hearing the results of the Committee's deliberations.

12 October 2007