IT WAS six months ago that a Parliamentary watchdog launched an inquiry into Basingstoke MP Maria Miller’s expenses claims – but there is still no indication when the probe will be completed.

Last December, The Daily Telegraph detailed the Culture Secretary’s taxpayer-funded expenses claims made between 2005 and 2009, and reported that she claimed £90,718 for a second home where her parents live with her family in Wimbledon, South London.

The report highlighted that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had ruled that second homes must be used “exclusively” by MPs fulfilling their parliamentary duty.

Now in June, six months after then Parliamentary Commissioner for Stand-ards John Lyon launched an investigation into Mrs Miller’s claims following a complaint by a Labour MP, The Gazette has been told that the investigation is still “ongoing”.

This week, the commissioner’s office refused to comment on any part of the investigation, and would not say when it would be finished.

After the story broke, Mrs Miller maintained that her expenses arrangements were “absolutely in order” and “in complete accordance with the rules”.

In an interview with The Gazette in March this year – six months after she was promoted to the Coalition Cabinet table by Prime Minister David Cameron – Mrs Miller said that media scrutiny, and the ongoing expenses investigation, did not prey on her mind.

“You really have to just get on with the job and I know that there will always be situations where people try and create issues for lots of different reasons,” she said. “You have to put those things to one side and get on with the job, and you can’t let things like that distract you.”

Yet the past two weeks have thrown up fresh scrutiny of Mrs Miller’s performance as Culture Secretary, and have seen some critics call her future at the top of Govern-ment into question.

At the end of May, respected Daily Mail parliamentary sketch writer Quentin Letts wrote a scathing critique of Mrs Miller’s tenure as Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport, and Minister for Women and Equalities.

He described Mrs Miller, right, as a “complete non-event”, said she “lacks the advocacy skills demanded of those in high office”, and added that “the personality of this most elusive of ministers was entirely lacking”.

He ended the lengthy article by saying: “The real Cabinet dud is Culture’s Maria Miller, a politician promoted far beyond her talents”.

And last Thursday, The Daily Telegraph reported speculation that Mrs Miller could be stripped of her responsibility for media policy, and quoted an unnamed Whitehall source who said her Department for Culture, Media, and Sport was “not fit-for- purpose”.

The article, which carried no statement from Mrs Miller or her department, said that her team have refused to brief The Daily Telegraph on upcoming issues in the wake of the expenses story.

The Gazette has contacted Mrs Miller’s parliamentary office several times this week with a view to speaking to her, but she has yet to get in touch.