KEIR Starmer has been slammed for appointing a disgraced former Labour politician who claimed expenses for pornography viewed by her husband to his Government.
The Prime Minister has revived the political career of former home secretary Jacqui Smith by appointing her as Higher Education Minister and giving her a seat in the House of Lords.
Smith quit Gordon Brown’s government in 2009 at the height of the expenses scandal, after she was found to have misused the second home allowance to fund her family home.
She apologised to the Commons that year for wrongly claiming the cost of pornographic films watched by her husband at her family home and said she had repaid the money in full.
Smith’s return to Parliament means she will again be entitled to expenses as a member of the House of Lords on top of the £361 daily attendance allowance.
A former teacher, Smith has been installed at the Department for Education as a minister by Starmer.
The Scottish Greens said all ministers should be “directly elected and accountable to their constituents, rather than being appointed via the discredited and undemocratic House of Lords”.
MSP Maggie Chapman (below) said: “The Scottish Greens will never welcome the return of a minister from the Tony Blair era, let alone one who voted for every authoritarian measure, every privatisation and the war in Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and inflicted a grave humanitarian catastrophe.
“Even more important than the faces around the Cabinet table is what they choose to do with the power it gives them. The Tories have been a disaster for people all over Scotland and beyond, but on the biggest issues Labour is planning to stick to the same broken policies.”
During her time at the Home Office, Smith steered through the Commons draconian new rules which would have given police the power to detain terror suspects without charge for 42 days.
The plans were eventually dropped after a defeat in the House of Lords.
In an appearance on Question Time after her expenses claims came to light, Smith admitted she had been “disgraced” and claimed she “never wanted to go to the House of Lords”.
Her appointment was one of a few surprises in Starmer’s government, which also brought former business secretary Douglas Alexander (above), the new MP for Lothian East, back to government.
Also included in the new team are Timpson CEO James Timpson, who has become a prisons minister in the Ministry of Justice and Patrick Vallance, who was chief scientific adviser to the Government during Covid. He has been made a science minister.
Labour were approached for comment.
