Election ban from Brown for Labour MPs who broke rules
Gordon Brown says Labour MPs who broke expenses rules cannot stand at next general election
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Tuesday, 19, May 2009 06:12
Gordon Brown has said any Labour MPs shown to have broken expenses regulations will be barred from standing at the next general election.
The prime minister is set to give a press conference outside Downing St this evening where he will discuss plans stemming from a meeting of the party's ruling NEC body earlier today.
He is expected to confirm ministers who broke the rules will be thrown out of the Cabinet or government.
The announcement will follow an emergency statement from the speaker Michael Martin, who is expected to announce his resignation over his handling of the affair.
"We are now setting up a process which will start today where we will examine the expenses of every MP going back for four years," Mr Brown told journalists emerging from the NEC.
"If they have been found to have broken the rules, action will be taken."
But questions have been raised of "root and branch reform" pledged by the prime minister after most MPs were shown to not have broken the rules but merely exploited them to their full extent.
Two MPs, Elliot Morley and David Chaytor, who claimed expenses to cover mortgage interest payments after the loans were paid off, have already been suspended by the parliamentary Labour party.
Earlier today, Conservative grandee Douglas Hogg, whose moat-cleaning expenses claims encapsulated the anger and alienation felt by the public, said he will stand down at the next general election.
"I entirely understand the public anger that has erupted over expenses. The current system is deeply flawed; we parliamentarians have got it wrong and I apologise for that failure which is both collective and personal," the former agriculture minister, who has repaid the moat expenses, said.
On Tuesday the Daily Telegraph published more expenses receipts that showed the way in which party whips have benefited from the system, with government whip Dawn Butler's Jacuzzi-style bath topping today's list.
Her colleagues among the Labour whips have also attracted headlines. Chief whip Nick Brown was singled out for claims worth £18,800 during a four-year period for food eaten at his second home. No receipts were submitted.
Labour whip Steve McCabe overclaimed by over £4,000 on his mortgage, while Diana Johnson spent over £1,000 getting an architect to help decorate her second home.
Ms Butler's expenditure came despite the fact her second home was just 15 miles away from her main property.
The Telegraph reported the Fees Office had said she could "dig up" receipts to cover a claim for £2,600 of excessive rent.
The expenses claims highlighted by the newspaper today are not just limited to Labour. Conservative chief whip Patrick McLoughlin had new windows fitted at his second home for a cost of £3,000, paid for by the taxpayer.