Call for action on expenses as police unable to pursue MP

Published on Friday 21 March 2008 21:06

PRESSURE was growing yesterday for a fundamental overhaul of the system for paying MPs' expenses after police said they could not investigate the disgraced Tory Derek Conway.

The Metropolitan Police decision followed advice from prosecutors that arcane rules at Westminster "would severely undermine the viability of any criminal investigation".

The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said the inability of Scotland Yard to act showed that the system of paying MPs an average of 135,600 in allowances a year – on top of their 61,820 salaries – was "in desperate need of reform".

By July, Commons Speaker Michael Martin is expected to conclude a major review of the payment and scrutiny of MPs' expenses.

Already, the amount that MPs can recoup without a receipt is being cut from 250 to 25, from next month, while a ruling by the Information Commissioner will require MPs later this year to publish full details of their spending, probably since 2004.

MPs will also be asked from 1 April to declare in the register of interests whether they employ family members.

Yesterday Mr Clegg said: "The public have the right to expect that their money is being properly accounted for. The Speaker's review of expenses must provide the basis for fundamental changes to the system of MPs' allowances."

Tory MP Ben Wallace, who publishes all his expenses, has urged other members to do likewise.

"It's the public's money," he said.

The controversy over MPs' expenses was sparked in January when Mr Conway was suspended from the Commons for ten days after a parliamentary committee ruled that he had paid his son, Freddie, 43,964 for little or no work.

The Commons standards and privileges committee found Freddie had been "all but invisible" from parliament.

The committee said Conway's behaviour was "at the least an improper use of parliamentary allowances; at worst, it was a serious diversion of public funds".

The MP has since lost the Tory whip and will stand down at the next election, but he has denied any wrongdoing.

Scotland Yard said it would not pursue the matter because the Crown Prosecution Service warned that poor record-keeping meant it would be hard to build a case.

"The CPS advised us that they are of the view that the lack of systems in this case to account for MPs' expenses would severely undermine the viability of any criminal investigation leading to a prosecution," a spokesman said.

"In these circumstances we do not believe that it is appropriate for a police investigation to be instigated."