Kali Mountford to continue as MP despite poor health

Jun 4 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Politician defends decision to soldier on for another year

A LOCAL MP has vowed to carry on despite her poor health.

Colne Valley’s Kali Mountford is standing down at the next election – but insists she is still working hard for her constituents.

The Labour woman, who walks with a stick, has declined to reveal the nature of her illness.

But Ms Mountford has applied for an ill-health pension, which is available to MPs under 65 who have to retire through sickness.

And the MP also said yesterday that she would receive a Resettlement Allowance of between 50 and 100% of her £64,000 salary for the year after she leaves Parliament.

Ms Mountford said: “I don’t know exactly how much I will receive, it will be based on my length of service. It’s basically a redundancy payment so, like any other redundancy payment, the first £30,000 won’t be taxed.”

Ms Mountford justified the Resettlement Allowance by pointing out that most MPs do not have long careers in Parliament.

She said: “There are some MPs like Barry Sheerman who serve for 25 or 30 years, but the average MP has a Parliamentary life of eight to 12 years.”

Ms Mountford’s comments come two weeks after she told the Examiner “you don’t get a payment for finishing as an MP”.

Ms Mountford, 55, is also applying for an ill-health pension from Parliament. She said: “My application goes to the committee next week and it depends on my doctors giving evidence on the state of my health. I don’t know how much I might get.”

Ms Mountford rarely travels to Westminster any more, taking part in just 3% of Parliamentary votes in 2008-09.

But the MP insisted she continued to work hard for people in the Colne Valley. She said: “I’m dedicated to concentrating on constituency things.

“Even though I can’t do some of the things I used to do in committees down in Westminster, there’s more to being an MP than that.

“I’ve built up really good contacts with ministers over the years and I’m using these contacts to help people in the Colne Valley.”

Mr Norman Higgs, a constituent of Ms Mountford’s from Holmfirth, wrote to the Examiner complaining that the MP was not providing “value for money”.

But Ms Mountford said: “I will carry on as best I can and I think it would be really wrong not to try to accommodate people when they are not in the best health.”

Ms Mountford has been Colne Valley MP since 1997. She had a majority of 1,500 over the Conservatives at the last general election in 2005.