page_title: Elliot Morley
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Elliot Morley / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Opening of the Spirit of the Wild exhibition of photographs by Steve Bloom, on Centenary Way, Birmingham, England, on 22 September 2005, in the presence of the then Lord Mayor of Birmingham, John Hood; Deputy Leader of the Council, Paul Tilsley; and the Minister for Environment, Elliot Morley.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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 This was revoked on 14 June 2011.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 (Amendment) 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.
caption: Morley in Birmingham in September 2005, in his role as Minister
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