Maria Miller has resigned as culture secretary after telling British prime minister David Cameron that her continued presence at the cabinet table would act as a distraction to the "vital work" of the government amid continuing controversy around her expenses claims.
Hours before Mr Cameron was expected to face a bumpy session in the House of Commons yesterday, Ms Miller released a letter to the prime minister saying she would resign with immediate effect.
Her resignation marks a severe blow to the personal authority of the prime minister, who had called on the press to “leave it there” on Friday, a day after Ms Miller issued an abrupt 32-second apology over her expenses.
Ms Miller, after consulting with her family and hearing the mood in the Conservative party, rang Mr Cameron on Tuesday night to tell him she wanted to resign. She spoke to him after he attended the state dinner with President Michael D Higgins at Windsor Castle.
Downing Street announced that Sajid Javid, the financial secretary to the treasury, would take over as culture secretary. A wider cabinet reshuffle is expected in the summer.
Ordered to apologise
The culture secretary has been fighting for her political life since she was ordered by the House of Commons standards committee to apologise for her conduct towards the parliamentary standards watchdog during an investigation into her expenses.
Ms Miller was ordered to repay £5,800 in overclaimed expenses related to her mortgage on her “second” home in Wimbledon, south London – bought nine years before her election to parliament in 2005. Ms Miller has faced intense pressure because the sum was considerably lower than the £45,000 repayment recommended by the standards watchdog Kathryn Hudson.
In a letter to Ms Miller, the prime minister pointed out that she had been cleared of the original complaint lodged by Labour MP John Mann – that she had abused the system of expenses by allowing her parents to live at the Wimbledon home that was subsidised in part by parliamentary expenses.
However, Ms Miller decided to go as it became clear that she enjoyed little support on the Tory benches, where rightwingers have never forgiven her for her role in introducing the legislation that legalised gay marriage. Moderate Tories felt she had mishandled the response to the standards committee report with her peremptory apology last week.
In her letter to Mr Cameron, she wrote: “It is with great regret that I have decided that I should tender my resignation as a member of the cabinet. I am very grateful to you for your personal support but it has become clear to me that the present situation has become a distraction from the vital work this government is doing to turn our country around.”
Michael Gove, the education secretary who was elected to parliament on the same day as Ms Miller in 2005, said her resignation should serve as a warning to the political class as a whole about their expenses. – (Copyright Guardian News & Media 2014)