Elliot Anthony Morley is a British former Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Glanford and Scunthorpe from 1987 to 1997 and then Scunthorpe from 1997 to 2010. In 2009, he was accused by The Daily Telegraph of continuing to claim parliamentary expenses for a mortgage that had already been repaid. Morley was prosecuted and on 7 April 2011 pleaded guilty in Southwark Crown Court to two counts of false accounting, involving over £30,000. On 20 May 2011, he was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment. He was released from prison on 20 September 2011 having served a quarter of his sentence.
Before entering Parliament, Morley was a Labour member of Hull City Council representing Drypool Ward from 1979 to 1986. He stood unsuccessfully for Beverley in 1983. He served as Fisheries Minister from 1997 to 2003, and then as Environment Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but left government in the May 2006 reshuffle. During his time in government, Morley pushed for a series of environmental causes. In 2004, he sought to strengthen the United Kingdom's efforts to purchase legally harvested lumber and aided the launch of a programme to manage flooding and coastal erosion called 'WaveNet'. In 2005 Morley assisted in the establishment of a Governmental Decontamination Service, to provide decontamination and cleansing assistance after chemical, radiological, biological, or nuclear incidents and major accidental releases of harmful materials. On 19 December 2006 he was appointed to the Privy Council. This was revoked on 14 June 2011. He was Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, leaving this post when his expenses claims came under investigation. In 2007 Morley voted to support the Freedom of Information Bill, which would have given Parliament a blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act and thereby prevent the release of any information on expenses claims by Members of Parliament. However the Bill was defeated.
Expenses claims
As part of its disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament, The Daily Telegraph alleged on 14 May 2009 that Morley claimed £800 a month in respect of a property in Winterton, near Scunthorpe, for 18 months after the mortgage ended, and received an overpayment of £16,800 in total. The Telegraph also alleged Morley let a London flat designated as his main residence to another Labour MP, Ian Cawsey, a close friend and former special adviser. Cawsey named the property as his second home, allowing him to claim £1,000 a month to cover the rent which he was charged by Morley. In November 2007, the newspaper claims Morley 'flipped' his designated second home from his Scunthorpe property to his London flat, and for four months the two men claimed expenses on the same property. Morley told BBC News that he had repaid the money two weeks before The Telegraph story breaking upon realising he had mistakenly continued claiming for his mortgage payments after the mortgage had been paid off in 2006. On 14 May 2009 he was suspended from holding office in the Parliamentary Labour Party because of this scandal. Morley referred himself to John Lyon, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, in an effort to clear his name. It was reported that this inquiry was put on hold pending a police investigation. On 29 May 2009 he announced that he would not stand for re-election, but refused to resign immediately.
Prosecution
On 5 February 2010, it was reported that Morley would face criminal charges over his expenses, and the Labour whip was subsequently suspended. On 27 May 2010 Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine, and Lord Hanningfield appeared at Southwark Crown Court for a preliminary hearing. They faced charges of false accounting under the Theft Act. Morley eventually pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Southwark on 7 April 2011 before Mr Justice Saunders, who had presided over the other prosecutions in the Parliamentary expenses scandal. On 20 May 2011, Morley was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment on two counts of false accounting. He served four months in prison – a quarter of the sentence – and was then released under the home detention curfew scheme. On 8 June 2011, he was expelled from the Privy Council. It was the first expulsion since Edgar Speyer in 1921. Morley was previously a Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers for services to flood and coastal defence. He was expelled from the Institution of Civil Engineers on 4 July 2011, when the Institution's Professional Conduct Panel ruled that due to his breaching of "Rule 1 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which require all members to uphold the dignity, standing and reputation of the Institution" by "committing offences of False Accounting in connection with his responsibilities as a Member of Parliament" he should be expelled from the Institution.
