 Sir Thomas angered MPs by imposing retrospective limits on some claims |
MPs should repay £1.12m of their second home expenses, an audit of their claims dating back to 2004 has said.
Sir Thomas Legg recommended that 390 MPs, more than half the current and past MPs reviewed, should repay £1.3m.
Some MPs say the way Sir Thomas carried out the audit was "sloppy" and £180,000 was cut off the total after appeals.
Sir Thomas said the expenses system was "deeply flawed", the rules "vague" and it had been up to MPs to "self certify" the propriety of their claims.
MPs had to sign a declaration with each claim saying "that I incurred these costs wholly, exclusively and necessarily to enable me to stay overnight away from my only or main home for the purpose of performing my duties as a Member of Parliament".
In his report Sir Thomas pointed out there had been a "culture of deference" to MPs by expenses officials and "no audit of any kind" of second homes expenses during the period he covered.
"Neither internal nor external auditors could 'go behind the member's signature'," he said.
The report said £800,000 had been repaid already - some unconnected to Sir Thomas's demands - since April 2009, the month before the scandal broke.
The highest amount recommended for repayment, following the appeals process, is £42,458 for Labour junior minister Barbara Follett.
It relates to claims for mobile security patrols at her second home - which Sir Thomas said went beyond what was allowed under the rules and claims for six telephone lines which he ruled was "excessive". Ms Follett has already repaid £32,976 and told the BBC: "This has been a very sad affair, I'm very sorry about it, I did try to act as honestly as possible but where I failed, I am sorry."
Other large repayment requests were about £60,000 in total from husband and wife Conservative MPs Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride and £24,878 from shadow defence secretary Liam Fox - all of whom have already repaid the money although Liam Fox says his appeal is still pending.
Some MPs have criticised Sir Thomas's audit - which itself cost £1.16m - saying mistakes were made and some said their reputations were unjustly damaged.
They were given the option of appealing against Sir Thomas's recommendations and about 70 are known to have done so - 44 were successful in getting the demands either reduced or overturned.
Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin - who Sir Thomas recommended should repay £63,250 - had the amount reduced by £27,000 while the ex-Conservative minister Peter Lilley had his demand for £41,057 overturned entirely on appeal.
The judge who ruled on appeals, Sir Paul Kennedy, said each case had to be looked at "on its own merits".
He also said he was "particularly troubled" that MPs who had not broken any rules at the time had been accused of making "tainted" claims or having "breached the requirement of propriety".
Many MPs complained that Sir Thomas had retrospectively applied limits to claims for gardening and cleaning that were not in place at the time.
Deadline to repay
But Sir Thomas said the rules stated that MPs should only be reimbursed "for specific and proportionate expenditure... needed for the performance of Parliamentary duties".
The fact that the fees office and MPs "acted in apparent ignorance of the rules and standards then in force cannot cure the invalidity of the payments", he said.
He also criticised a "widespread lack of proper evidence on the record from MPs to support substantial payments" and said the second homes expenses were "deeply flawed".
"In particular, the rules were vague, and MPs were themselves self-certifying as to the propriety of their use of the allowance," he said.
"Taken with the prevailing lack of transparency and the 'culture of deference', this meant that the [Commons] fees office's decisions lacked legitimacy; and many of them were in fact mistaken."
The expenses saga had been "traumatic and painful" he said but the response to it had shown that "when things do go wrong, we have together the will and the means to put matters right".
The report notes that two former MPs who left in 2005 - Labour's John Lyons and Ivor Caplin - had not yet responded to requests for repayments of more than £17,000 each.
Sitting MPs have until 22 February to repay the amounts requested. Commons leader Harriet Harman told MPs: "All repayments will have to be made or firm arrangements entered into, otherwise the recovery process from pay or allowances will start after the 22nd of this month. So everything that should be paid back, will be paid back."
It is thought that 76 people have not yet repaid the money - 60 of whom are current MPs.
Some MPs have gone further than Sir Thomas required and repaid sums voluntarily when details of claims broke last year.
The Labour MP Phil Hope repaid more than £42,000 on his own initiative last May - because he said his reputation with his constituents had been dealt a "massive blow" - Sir Thomas only recommended that he repay £4,365.
'Failed to clean up system'
Hazel Blears - the former cabinet minister who famously went on TV with a cheque for £13,332 after being criticised for not paying capital gains tax on the sale of two flats, which was not against the rules, was only told to repay £225 for a shelving unit.
The prime minister's spokesman said Gordon Brown was fully supportive of Sir Thomas Legg's review and that he encouraged MPs to pay back money owed as quickly as possible and it was an important step in overhauling a discredited system.
Is the row over MPs' expenses now over? Not by a long chalk
Conservative leader David Cameron told the BBC: "What is absolutely essential is that MPs pay back all this money that's been identified - those MPs who refuse to pay it back, they should have it taken off their salaries or their redundancy payments - that's got to happen."
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg told the BBC he expected Sir Thomas's report would be "uncomfortable reading for a large number of MPs" but added: "I hope it'll be the final chapter in this rotten Parliament so we can look forward to a new Parliament with new rules."
Labour MP Tony Wright, chairman of the Public Administration Committee, said he was sure voters would "make a judgment" about the conduct of individual MPs hoping to continue in the next Parliament at the upcoming general election.
"We failed to clean up this system and we had to call in other people to do it for us," he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.
No comments:
Post a Comment