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.

Julian Lewis, an official ruled that a £6,000 floor on expenses would be extravagant

The shadow minister, who voted against opening up MPs’ expenses to greater scrutiny, asked for the money as part of an £11,914 redecoration project at the London flat he designated as his second home.

The Conservative defence spokesman successfully claimed £4,870 for upgrading the property but was told that the remaining £5,995 plus VAT for a wooden floor with acoustic underlay would not be allowed.

The 57-year-old successfully claimed £352.50 in legal fees for settling a dispute over unpaid service charges at the London flat, as well as £119 for a wall-mounted trouser press, £5 for a “sweater tidy” and £4 for wax polish.

Mr Lewis, the MP for New Forest East, in Hampshire, wrote on a Conservative blog earlier this year: “I live without extravagance and I don’t like borrowing money.”

Yet the letter he was sent by Commons administrators stated: “Thank you for providing us with a list of proposed works to your second home [in London]. I understand that you wish to know if we would consider them to be allowable charges to set against your Additional Costs Allowance.

“After reading your proposals and comparing it to the rules, as set out in the Green Book, I can confirm it would be in order for you to claim for the redecoration, shelving, organisation and disposal costs.

“However, with the information to hand, we would consider that the wooden flooring with acoustic underlay could be seen as extravagant, at a cost of £5,995 excluding VAT, and as such would not be allowed.”

The MP regularly claimed up to £1,200 a month for interest on the mortgage on the £400,000 flat, as allowed under Commons rules . He owns two other properties - a flat in Southampton that he rents out and a detached house in his constituency that is no longer mortgaged.

Mr Lewis is so keen to ensure his own personal security that he has admitted being on the electoral roll under a nom de plume.

In 2007 he voted for David Maclean’s private member’s bill that would have exempted Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act, thus preventing the disclosure of MPs’ expenses details.

Mr Lewis also led a successful campaign to prevent MPs having to publish their home addresses, claiming that the move would threaten the personal security of members and their families.

“If there is any sense in our having the expensive and complex screening arrangements at the Commons to ensure that nothing horrible, explosive or contaminated is sent through the post en masse to Members of Parliament, who are probably being targeted not individually but as a body, it is obvious madness to reveal the 646 home addresses,” he told the Commons.

Last July the Government backed his motion, signed by 256 MPs from all parties, preventing MPs’ home addresses, their expenditure on security and the identity of anyone delivering goods or services being disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Earlier this year Mr Lewis tabled an amendment to the Political Parties and Elections Bill proposing that candidates should be legally entitled to keep their addresses secret from voters on security grounds. The amendment was carried.

Mr Lewis has criticised this newspaper for its four-year battle to publish MPs expenses, including addresses. He told the Commons: “I wish that there could be a vote so that even the idiot scribblers on The Sunday Telegraph could understand that our action has nothing to do with expenses and everything to do with security.”

He accused Sunday Telegraph journalist Ben Leapman of writing “an inane half-page article about how vital it was to reveal our home addresses, to ensure that we were not fiddling our expenses,” adding: “He ought to be ashamed of himself.”

Freedom of information campaigners say that if the addresses are kept secret, cases of MPs claiming interest on non-existent mortgages or claiming for second homes they do not live at or rarely live at will never come to light.

Other successful expenses claims made by Mr Lewis included £45 for a shower curtain, £2,369.75 for kitchen appliances including a £789 Bosch washer dryer, and £646 for the installation of new bathroom taps.

Justifying his claims yesterday, Mr Lewis said the kitchen appliances replaced items that were “worn out or, in the case of the electric hob, extremely uneconomic” and his claim was “entirely appropriate”.

He said his £98 claim for two bedroom rugs compared well with the alternative of carpeting which “would have been well in excess of £1,000”.

Explaining the redecoration, he said: “It was obvious to me that some of the work would be claimable and some would not. I therefore submitted the estimate to the fees office with a request for their guidance as to what was appropriate to claim and what was not.

“I did not in any way question or challenge the advice that she gave and therefore did not claim for the biggest single item — namely, the wooden flooring.

“At no stage did I claim for the flooring and it did not cost the taxpayer a penny.”