Cash secrets of MPs who tried to stop you seeing their expenses

David Maclean, David Clelland, Julian Lewis and Fraser Kemp

An investigation has established that backers of a Bill two years ago which aimed to exempt Parliament from the full force of the Freedom of Information Act have benefited from thousands of pounds paid under the second home expenses system.

Examples ranged from a former government whip who “bought out” his partner from her share of a London flat at a cost to the taxpayer of thousands of pounds, to a Tory grandee who spent thousands of pounds of public funds on his country estate before selling it.

A shadow minister claimed a £7,000 bedroom suite and a £2,200 television and “flipped” his second home, while a Labour election co-ordinator bought 16 bedsheets within the space of two months for a one-bedroom flat.

The MPs, who all backed the 2007 Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill introduced by David Maclean, the former Conservative chief whip, will face questions over their use of expenses and will come under pressure to return money.

Supporters of Mr Maclean’s Bill said they were acting to protect the confidentiality of constituents. Yet MPs opposing the Bill told the Commons repeatedly that its main impact would be to keep expenses secret.

The latest disclosures came as the fallout from the MPs’ expenses scandal showed no sign of letting up. David Chaytor, a backbench MP, was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party after he admitted he had claimed nearly £13,000 for the mortgage on a London flat after it was paid off.

The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service are due to meet this week to decide whether to start a criminal inquiry following the Telegraph’s investigation into the misuse of the expenses system by MPs from all sides of the House of Commons.

Two new opinion polls confirmed the damage being sustained by both main parties over the expenses scandal.

Labour was neck and neck with the UK Independence Party in a BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday as voters looked set to punish mainstream parties over the expenses scandal at the ballot box next month.

More than a third of voters (38 per cent) now believe Gordon Brown should call a snap election over the scandal.

A second poll, by ComRes for the Independent on Sunday, also showed a record low for Labour.

A five point slump for each since last month left Labour on 21 per cent - just three points ahead of the Liberal Democrats who were unchanged at 18 per cent - with the Tories on 40 per cent.

The latest disclosures include:

- David Maclean, who introduced the 2007 Bill, spent more than £20,000 doing up his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) before selling it for £750,000.

He was entitled to the money because the property was designated as his “second home” with the Commons authorities, yet Mr Maclean did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.

- David Clelland, the Labour MP, “bought out” his partner’s share of a joint mortgage on a flat in London in a deal which cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds plus legal fees. After the deal, which was approved by the Commons fees office, his taxpayer-funded mortgage interest payments increased by almost £200 a month.

Mr Clelland, who cited the “increasingly bureaucratic” nature of the expenses system and fears of “press intrusion” as reasons for ending the joint mortgage, also submitted a claim including 36p for fuses.

- Fraser Kemp, a former government whip and one of Labour’s key election strategists, made repeat purchases of household items within weeks of each other for his one-bedroom flat.

He bought 16 sheets within seven weeks and tried to claim for a £1,699 television only for the fees office to turn the claim down.

A year earlier he had successfully claimed for a £599 television. Last night he described some of his purchases – including the bed linen – as an “error” and offered to make repayments.

- Julian Lewis, the shadow defence minister and one of the most outspoken opponents of the disclosure of MPs’ personal details, asked

if he could claim £6,000 expenses for a wooden floor with acoustic underlay but was told by officials in the fees office that this “could be seen as extravagant”. However, he was permitted to claim £4,870 to upgrade the London flat, as well as £352.20 in legal fees for settling a dispute over unpaid service charges. Mr Lewis also claimed £119 for a wall-mounted trouser press and £5 for a “sweater tidy”. Last night he described the ACA as an “absolutely rotten system”.

- David Ruffley, the shadow Home Office minister, “flipped” his second home from a London flat to his Bury St Edmunds constituency before spending thousands of pounds on furniture and fittings. He successfully claimed for a £1,674 sofa – but was refused the full amount when he claimed for a £2,175 46-inch Sony widescreen HD television from Harrods. An attempt to claim £6,765 for the purchase of several bedroom items was reduced by £4,748.

Not all of the 98 MPs who supported Mr Maclean’s Bill in 2007 had questionable expenses. Some submitted low or zero claims including Labour’s Martin Salter and Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP.

The latest disclosures came as Gordon Brown and David Cameron faced increasing pressure to do more to address the scale of the abuse of the expenses system.

Since the Telegraph investigation began nine days ago, one minister has stepped down from his post, two Labour MPs have been suspended from the parliamentary party, while a parliamentary aide to the Conservative leader has also resigned his role.

Last night the Prime Minister pledged to take action against ministers who abuse the expenses system and claimed he was “appalled and angered” by the disclosures.

“The bottom line is that any MP who is found to have defied the rules will not be serving in my government,” Mr Brown said.

“I want to assure every citizen of my commitment to a complete clean-up of the system — that wherever and whenever immediate disciplinary action is required I will take it.” The position of Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker, remains under threat. A “no confidence” motion could to be tabled against him this week. In a leaked letter to Tory candidates campaigning in next month’s European elections, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said the Opposition backed “the office of the Speaker,” suggesting that the Tory leadership was losing patience with Mr Martin personally.

Officially, both Mr Brown and Mr Cameron back him – although a growing number of MPs favour his early removal on the grounds that he has mishandled the expenses affair.

David Maclean and the expense claims of MP who led fight to keep payouts secret

He claimed for maintenance and repairs to the property in his Cumbrian constituency in 2004/5. He was eligible for the money because the house was designated as his second home.

Yet he did not pay capital gains tax (CGT) after the sale in March 2006 because he considered the property to be his main home.

He submitted a list of renovations costing more than £40,000 at the farmhouse in Hesket Newmarket, a village on the edge of the Lake District.

The help he got with the bill meant that he received the maximum permitted Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) from the taxpayer, which was £20,902 in 2004/5.

The work included more than £2,024 for new fence posts, £1,199 on trees and £625 for a “digger”.

Mr Maclean, the MP for Penrith and the Border, said CGT was not payable because the property was always his main residence, and was designated his “second home” by Commons officials only because it was a requirement of his position as opposition chief whip, which he held until 2005, to designate a “main home” in London.

Property sellers must pay CGT on the profit from a sale of any home other than their primary residence. Because the Commons system runs separately to the tax system, it is permissible to register a house with HM Revenue and Customs as a main home even if it is a second home for parliamentary purposes.

However, amid widespread criticism of the practice, Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, who benefited from a similar arrangement, offered last week to repay £13,000 in compensation for CGT she did not pay on the sale of a London property in 2004.

Mr Maclean said yesterday: “The house in Hesket Newmarket was our main home and was at all times, even when I was made to nominate London under Green Book rules.

Therefore capital gains was not paid on it. I will be eligible and will pay for capital gains on the London flat.”

He said the £40,000 building bill he submitted to the fees office was merely to prove that the work was costing him at least £21,000, and that he was not claiming for every item on the list.

Following the sale of his farmhouse, Mr Maclean “flipped” his allowance to a £550,000 flat in Westminster. This meant a rise in the claims of mortgage interest repayments from £5,000 a year to almost £9,000.

The 56-year-old also spent more than £10,000 over two years on service charges for his flat in an exclusive apartment block close to the Houses of Parliament.

In 2008, when he took out a reduced mortgage with a new lender, requiring payments of only £5,735 in annual interest, he claimed £1,003.29 for legal fees.

Between 2006 and 2008 he also claimed £3,728 on refurbishing the Westminster flat, including £599.90 at John Lewis and £504.14 with Lakeland, a kitchen supplier.

He said many of the purchases were made to adapt the flat because of his worsening multiple sclerosis, which meant he walked with the aid of a shepherd’s crook.

Mr Maclean said he spent more than £25,000 on adaptations to the flat without claiming it back.

Some expenses claims were accepted by the fees office even though Mr Maclean, who served as a whip in Margaret Thatcher’s government, provided no receipts. Instead, he wrote on the allowance form that his credit card details were “available for inspection”.

In 2007 Mr Maclean claimed £1,298 for a 32in flat-screen television to be installed at his home. He did not claim under the ACA but from a separate allowance, the Incidental Expenditure Provision (IEP), which is intended to cover office costs.

He justified his claim by stating that the television was for the room he designated as his “home office”. He said he bought additional televisions out of his own pocket because of his reduced mobility.

Claims for televisions made under the ACA were capped at £750 but the cost of the 32in set was met because there were different rules for IEP claims.

Mr Maclean said yesterday that many of the claims relating to his Westminster flat were for items related to his multiple sclerosis.

“One of the items from Lakeland is a little tea trolley thing which I have to use in my flat to put things on and push from room to room so I do not spill things,” he wrote.

He “utterly refuted” any suggestion that he made any expenses claims that were extravagant.

“For the last financial year, 2008/9, I have claimed no Communications Allowance, cut my staffing, cut my London ACA and saved, all told, almost £30,000.

"I was doing that long before this scandal broke. I have saved almost £30,000 in my total running costs in the last year, although you will never print that.”

Mr Maclean’s expense claims have provoked controversy in the past. In 2006 he claimed for a £2,300 quad bike to get around his large rural constituency.

He said he had “nothing to hide”; that Commons authorities approved the claim; and that the bike would be returned to those authorities when he ceased to be an MP.

“I just asked whether I was eligible for it and was told yes,” he said.

In 2006 and 2007 Mr Maclean sought, through a private member’s bill, to amend the Freedom of Information Act to exempt Parliament from its provision.

If his move had been successful, his expenses and those of his colleagues would never have been disclosed.