Caroline Spelman, the then Chairman of the Conservative Party, became embroiled in the "Nanny Gate" saga on 6 June 2008 when the BBC's Newsnight programme suggested she had paid for her nanny out of parliamentary expenses during her early years in Parliament, between 1997 and 1998. Spelman issued a statement to Newsnight that the nanny in question, Tina Haynes, was also her constituency secretary. The Conservative Central Office agreed with her claim. Immediately after the revelations were made public, the nanny told Newsnight that she only took the odd phone message or posted documents when needed. In the following days, however, Haynes stated that her work had, in fact, been on a more formal basis, providing constituency secretarial work when Spelman's children were at school.

In an attempt to resolve the situation and clear her name, Spelman asked John Lyons, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, to investigate the payments to Haynes. However, the commissioner himself suggested that an investigation dating back seven years would be exceptional, especially on a self-referral. Despite this, the commissioner announced on 17 June that he would launch a formal investigation into the saga.

During the commissioner's investigation, Newsnight revealed that nine years earlier, Spelman's parliamentary secretary, Sally Hammond, had raised concerns over the "nannygate" payments with the leadership of the Conservative party. In 1998, Hammond informed Peter Ainsworth, a member of the Shadow Cabinet, who in turn referred the matter to the then Opposition Chief Whip, James Arbuthnot, who investigated and told Spelman to stop paying Haynes out of parliamentary expenses immediately.

In March 2009, the Committee for Standards and Privileges published their final report into the matter, which ruled that Spelman had inadvertently "misapplied part of her parliamentary allowances". However, both the Committee and the Commissioner noted that Spelman was, at the time, one of many new members who had taken their seats following the 1997 general election, and was therefore not fully aware of the rules governing the use or purpose of parliamentary allowances. The committee recommended that Spelman repay £9,600.