MPs told to repay £1.12m but expenses inquiry cost £1.16m. Great.
Good news Britain, a full list of repayments the nation's greedy MPs have been asked to make has been published in a report by the official auditor Sir Thomas Legg. There's bad news too, unfortunately. The investigation and report cost more than the total amount that's getting paid back.
The Legg review cost £1.16m but the total demand for repayment is only £1.12m. £55m was paid to MPs in total under the second home allowance, £1.3m of which Legg recommended be paid back by 390 MPs responsible for inappropriate claims. The figure was cut by £185,000 after a number of MPs appealed against the earlier judgement.
The report says:
"The Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) system was deeply flawed. In particular, the rules were vague and MPs were themselves self-certifying as to their propriety of their use of the allowance. Taken with the prevailing lack of transparency and the 'culture of deference', this meant that the Fees Office's decisions lacked legitimacy; and many of them were in fact mistaken."
The highest repayment comes from Barbara Follett, the former tourism minister who claimed for security patrols outside our house. She's been hit with a demand to repay £42,458.21.
Douglas Hogg, the Tory MP who claimed for getting his moat cleaned, has a repayment bill of £20,639.42.
A new system for viewing MP's latest expenses claims has been launched today The Telegraph describes it as "simply horrendous" compared to the old system (a list of names linked to PDFs).
The Guardian reports that the former judge dealing with MPs' appeals against demands for repayment after the scandal rejected "some of all of Sir Thomas Legg's demands for repayments in 44 out of 75 cases".
Update - 5th Feb:
3 Labour MPs and 1 Tory MP will face criminal charges over their expenses.
-
- groups:
- News and Politics
-
- tags:
- News and Politics
-
-
frizzlecat
-
So who paid for the remainder of the inquiry? Was it the tax-payer by any chance?
- 2 years ago
-
frizzlecat
-
-
krazykizza
-
Do remember, MPs may get paid a fair bit, but they claim on expenses knowing it will not be their bill to pay... id be worried if I had to pay it back when I thought I didn't. Misleading
- 2 years ago
-
krazykizza
-
-
starfish1982
-
So much for a day of reckoning for MPs. Was this all really worth it?
What's the point of these government enquiries? They never seem to do much. This, Dr Kelly, the Iraq Inquiry... all basically pointless, no?
- 2 years ago
-
starfish1982
