MPs ordered to repay £1.1m in expenses review
The long-awaited review of Commons expenses delivered its damning verdict today - ordering hundreds of MPs to repay more than £1.1m (€1.25m) and accusing senior figures of being obsessed with feathering their own nests.
Former mandarin Thomas Legg lambasted the “deeply flawed” system at Westminster, saying even the “vague” rules that existed had not been enforced.
Gordon Brown, who has handed back more than £13,000, welcomed the findings as “a very significant step forward” in restoring public trust following the damaging scandal.
But the credibility of the audit was called into question when it emerged that retired judge Paul Kennedy had fully or partially upheld appeals by 44 MPs against Legg’s initial conclusions, reducing the total repayment demand from £1.3m to £1.12m.
That is less than the £1.16m bill for the Legg process, that is being met by the taxpayer.
In his own foreword, Kennedy accused the auditor of acting beyond his remit by implying that MPs who made claims that were permitted under rules at the time had acted improperly.
“It was not the function of the review, nor is it my function, to make judgments of that kind,” he said.
The Prime Minister and the ruling Commons Members Estimate Committee turned to Legg to re-examine five years of claims after revelations of abuses began appearing in the Daily Telegraph last May.
His recommendations, published by the House authority today, were for 390 MPs to repay some £1.3m of “invalid” claims.
Tory backbencher Bernard Jenkin faced the highest demand, for £64,000 spent renting a property from his sister-in-law.
Mr Jenkin was among those whose challenges were successful, with the sum being halved to around £36,000.
In the wake of the appeals, the biggest repayment has been asked of culture minister Barbara Follett – £42,458 that went on security, telephone lines and insurance for artworks.
In his report, Legg said the “culture of deference” in the Fees Office had left it “vulnerable to the influence of higher authorities in the House of Commons, from the Speaker down, and of individual MPs”.
“In practice, during most of the review period, these influences tended more towards looking after the immediate interests of MPs than to safeguarding propriety in public expenditure,” he said.
Last May, Michael Martin became the first speaker forced out of office in 300 years, amid widespread anger from MPs at his handling of the crisis.
Legg, who served as an external member of the Commons Audit Committee during the period in question, bemoaned the fact that there was “no audit of any kind” of the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA), which funded second homes, or any other parliamentary expenses.
“Neither internal nor external auditors could ’go behind the Member’s signature’,” he wrote.
Legg stressed that his findings merely dealt with whether expenses claims had been “valid”, and intended “no reflections on the conduct or motives of individual MPs”.
