House of Lords member's allowance of £41,678, having designated a flat in Eastbourne as his main residence and his central London house as his second home. A subsequent complaint made by the Sunlight Centre for Open Politics was investigated by the Clerk of the Parliaments Michael Pownall, who did not uphold it, "In view of the assurances by Lord Rennard about the change in his circumstances and the time he spends in Eastbourne, and in the absence of any definition of main address in the current guidance to the House of Lords’ Members Expenses Scheme". Allegations of sexual harassment In February 2013, Channel 4 News ran a report on Lord Rennard, alleging a history of sexual harassment during his time as an official of the party. Channel 4 stated that the alleged victims decided to comment publicly since Rennard had begun to again play an 'active role in the Party'. He strongly denied the allegations. The earliest claims go back to 2007 when two women met Paul Burstow, then the party's Chief Whip in the Commons, to raise the issue with him. In a February 2013 statement issued shortly after Channel 4 News had broken the story, Nick Clegg wrote that claims about the improper conduct of Lord Rennard had been brought to his attention in 2008, but Rennard had denied any wrongdoing when challenged. The "indirect and non-specific concerns" he had been told about meant that he could take no further action, but Danny Alexander, Clegg's chief of staff at the time, had warned Rennard that the alleged behaviour would be "wholly unacceptable". A subsequent independent report in June 2013 by Helena Morrissey into "processes and culture within the Liberal Democrats" said that the leadership should have held an inquiry into the allegations at that time (when Rennard was still a member of staff). There was no such inquiry until that conducted by Alistair Webster QC, who concluded after examining over a hundred statements (including those made by the complainants as a result of interviews with specially trained police officers) that the evidence was insufficient to proceed to a disciplinary hearing. While staffing disciplinary matters would have required a civil standard of proof to be met, at that time Liberal Democrat regulations demanded a criminal standard of proof to uphold allegations against a Party member. The Metropolitan Police carried out their own investigation after one of the complainants went