Did we just clickbait you into clicking on this article? Did you think, ‘there’s no way that can be true’. Well dearest gentle Debunking reader it is indeed true. And we shall explain why.
All Councillors, and plenty more besides who make decisions that involve public money, absolutely must declare their pecuniary interests on their Council’s register of interests. It is a necessary transparency required for the general public to know that Councillors, MPs etc are not making decisions that could lead to their personal gain, (like owning shares in a company that owned most of the land surrounding Tamworth, now sold to housing developers, but we digress). So what has this got to do with Councillor Natalie Statham? Well, you might have guessed, the political hotshot (in her own head) with a politics degree and a sometimes holier than thou attitude no less, has failed to declare something rather important.
In the Tamworth Councillors register of interests which you can see here, you will see that Statham declares herself as working for Number 18 Cafe in town. Only that was in May 2024. And despite according to our sources, regular and very recent warnings from Council officers to update their interests, Statham has failed to do so. Updated: Not only is her employment wrong, she apparently doesn’t own or rent a house in Tamworth and the Labour party doesn’t pay for her elections expenses (spoiler, they do). There’s a few Councillors who’ve not bothered to fill any of their forms out at all either, including Labours’ Councillor Lewis Smith, who lists ‘Teacher’ under employment and nothing else. Worse still, he’s on the Council executive, i.e a decision maker.
So why have we focussed in on Statham in particular. It’s probably something to do with the fact that Statham is drawing a wage from the public purse working as office staff for Sarah Edwards MP, for quite a while now. Which we think is a rather important omission to make from your declarations of Interest. Especially when said MP could quite easily influence your objectives as a Councillor.
This below is the law as it stands, so in fact no we were not actually clickbaiting. Much as no doubt Statham and her Labour cronies will be tutting and shaking their heads for us bringing it up, facts are facts.
What happens if I don’t follow the rules on disclosable pecuniary interests?
It is a criminal offence if, without a reasonable excuse, you fail to tell the monitoring officer about your disclosable pecuniary interests, either for inclusion on the register if you are a newly elected, co-opted or appointed member, or to update the register if you are reelected or re-appointed, or when you become aware of a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not recorded in the register but which relates to any matter;
- that will be or is being considered at a meeting where you are present,
- or on which you are acting alone.
So it’s quite clear in the document which can be found here (PDF) on the Government’s website.
Natalie, you might just want to get this sorted asap, and as for anyone else who hasn’t bothered, we might just go trawling further soon. Can Debunking draw a wage for doing the monitoring officers job for her?
