Labour Candidate’s MP Office Role Puts Transparency Back in the Spotlight...
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Councillor, Candidate, Caseworker: The Labour Roles Raising Questions in Hartlepool...
5th May 2026
As voters in Hartlepool’s De Bruce ward prepare to head to the polls, fresh questions are being raised about the increasingly blurred lines between local councillors, parliamentary offices and Labour’s political machine across Teesside.
Cllr Rachel Creevy, who currently represents De Bruce on Hartlepool Borough Council, is listed by the council as the Labour and Co-operative Party candidate for the ward in the local election taking place on Thursday 7 May 2026. The official statement of persons nominated lists her alongside Reform UK, Green Party and Conservative candidates contesting the seat.
But the election has placed renewed attention on Cllr Creevy’s registered outside employment, where, according to Hartlepool Borough Council’s own Register of Members’ Interests, Cllr Creevy declared Luke Myer MP as an employment interest. The same register also lists her memberships of the Labour Party, Co-operative Party, Unison and GMB Union.
Luke Myer is the Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, having been elected in July 2024. That means a sitting Hartlepool Labour councillor, now standing again before voters in De Bruce, is also linked through paid employment to a neighbouring Labour MP’s parliamentary office.
There is no suggestion that holding both roles is unlawful. Councillors are permitted to have employment outside the council, provided their interests are properly declared and managed. However, the arrangement raises a wider question as to how much overlap is acceptable between elected council roles, Labour parliamentary offices and taxpayer-funded political casework structures?
The issue's not confined to Cllr Creevy either. Hartlepool Borough Council’s register also shows that Cllr Martin Dunbar, Labour and Co-operative councillor for Foggy Furze, has declared that he works as a caseworker for Jonathan Brash MP, the Labour MP for Hartlepool.
The Teesside & Durham Post also understands that Anth Frain, a controversial Labour figure and campaigner, along with two other councillors, are now working as caseworkers on Jonathan Brash's payroll MP. If correct, that would suggest a growing network of Labour-linked council figures and activists operating inside Labour MPs’ constituency offices while also remaining politically active locally.
That matters because MP caseworkers are not campaign staff. They deal with constituents’ problems, often involving housing, benefits, immigration, health services, council departments and other sensitive personal matters. IPSA, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, says MPs receive public funding to run local offices and employ constituency and parliamentary staff, with staffing making up a major part of MPs’ business costs.
The IPSA also makes it clear that MPs are legally responsible for the money claimed and for managing their budgets and staff, and that claims must follow principles including parliamentary purpose, value for money, accountability and probity.
The concern, therefore, is not simply whether rules have been followed on paper. It is whether the public can clearly distinguish between council representation, MP casework, party campaigning and taxpayer-funded political infrastructure.
For voters in Hartlepool's De Bruce ward, the timing is particularly sensitive. Cllr Creevy is not merely a councillor with an outside job; she is a councillor seeking re-election while also having a declared employment connection to a Labour MP’s office some 15 miles away. In a town where questions around transparency, political access and public trust have become increasingly central to local debate, voters may reasonably ask whether enough distance exists between those roles.
The Nolan Principles of Public Life apply to those elected or appointed to public office nationally and locally. They include selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
The question now therefore is whether Hartlepool’s Labour group and local Labour MPs are willing to explain clearly how these dual roles are managed, what safeguards are in place, and how residents can be confident that council matters, MP casework and party-political activity are kept properly separate.
