The long-awaited review of House of Commons expenses has ordered MPs to repay £1.12 million, it was revealed today.
The review’s author, Sir Thomas Legg, lambasted the “deeply flawed” system at Westminster and recommended that MPs hand back £1.3 million.
But that figure was reduced by £185,000 after former judge Sir Paul Kennedy upheld a number of appeals by MPs against the repayment demands.
The largest sums ordered to be repaid by sitting MPs - after appeals are taken into account - were £42,458 by Barbara Follett (Labour, Stevenage), £36,250 by Bernard Jenkin (Conservative, North Essex), £31,193 by Andrew Mackay (Conservative, Bracknell), £29,398 by John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal), £29,243 by Julie Kirkbride (Conservative, Bromsgrove) and £24,878 by Liam Fox (Conservative, Woodspring).
After examining appeals, Sir Paul wholly or partially threw out 44 of 75 disputed demands. He also used the foreword to his own report to level several serious criticisms at the methods used by Sir Thomas in his audit.
Sir Paul said he was “particularly troubled” that MPs who had not broken rules that were in place at the time had been accused of making “tainted” claims or having “breached the requirement of propriety”.
The application of retrospective caps for cleaning and gardening was “a rational response to a difficult problem” but it was “bound to have unfortunate consequences”.
While it was “irritating, to say the least” for anyone to be asked to repay money claimed in good faith, he went on, it was “infinitely more irritating and potentially very damaging to reputation if the exercise takes place in the full
glare of media publicity”.
Sir Paul said it was “unfortunate” that the Legg review had invoked “the requirement of propriety” over cleaning and gardening claims. “That carries with it the inevitable implication that those who made claims in excess of the retrospectively-imposed limits were lacking in propriety.
“I found little, if any, evidence of that,” he said - accusing Sir Thomas of acting beyond his remit. “It was not the function of the review, nor is it my function, to make judgments of that kind.”
PA