The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

…Not that I am suggesting for an instant that they are guilty, of course, as it seems finally a court of law will get to decide on the MPs’ expenses scandal. While I remain sceptical about the moral posturing conducted about MPs by some of the equally morally dubious press, I have always said that cases where there was evidence of criminal behaviour should be dealt with.

Now we know four people will face criminal charges over misuse of public money. And each of their circumstances helps us paint a picture of what was going on with the Fees Office and MPs’ claims.

So as not to be biased, I’ll start with the Conservative member of the quartet, Lord Hanningfield. It is said that between March 2006 and May 2009, he submitted claims for overnight stays in London when he was actually driven home to Chelmsford. Earlier versions of the story in the media contained information that has subsequently been removed for Contempt of Court reasons. Suffice it to say that it appears from earlier quotes that Fees Office staff were informing those that they oversaw that charging for overnight stays and then sloping off back home – or staying the night with friends instead - was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Well it isn’t – and those alleged to have made such claims should clearly have known better. But it also serves to illustrate the catastrophic failure of the Fees Office to do its job – it has been seeking to run things for the benefit of MPs and peers rather than for the taxpayers that are its real masters.

Elliot Morley is charged with claiming mortage expenses during a three-year period on either a false basis or when the loan had already been paid off. He claims that he didn’t realise that mortgage had been paid off and he has repaid the money. It is also worth noting that the Fees Offices clearly didn’t see fit to check his claim over this long period of time. In my view, it is totally correct that these charges should be heard by a court. This is not the same as charging for a duck house or trouser press; the allegations – and they are only allegations – amount to something else entirely.

David Chaytor is charged with submitting false invoices and coming up with an ingenious scheme whereby a flat that he actually owned was “rented” from his daughter and mother in order to claim expenses on it. Again, these are only charges, but it seems to me that if MPs put half as much energy into lawmaking as they appear to have put into finding ways of maximising their expense claims, the country might not be in such a dire situation. And once again, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that somewhere along the line, the Fees Office knew of this arrangement and were happy to accommodate it. And if they didn’t, they should have.

Jim Devine took Robin Cook’s seat after the latter died in 2005 and is charged with using false invoices. His case is interesting because he became an MP only four years before the story broke. I refuse to believe that a man of previously good character - and who has been through a rigorous selection process – suddenly decides to come up with false invoices after only three years in the House of Commons.

I think that somewhere in all of this there were people assuring MPs that it was fine to claim for bathplugs, fine to claim for overnight stays and then go home, okay to put through a “replacement” invoice for one that was lost and no problem to use a variety of tricks to keep the expense payments as high as possible.

That doesn’t excuse the MPs, all of whom are guilty of poor judgement and avarice. But it does ask questions about the officials involved in this discredited process and whose names are not plastered all over the papers at the moment.