MPs' expenses: A scandal that will not die

The resignation of Maria Miller as Culture Secretary came after she was criticised for failing to cooperate properly with an inquiry into claims she made for mortgage payments on the house she owned in London. Under the old system, MPs could claim for mortgage interest on their second homes, a practice scrapped after the crisis.

Even Mrs Millers replacement in the Cabinet owes his safe seat largely to the expenses crisis. Sajid Javid entered the Commons in 2010, after the then MP for Bromsgrove, Julie Kirkbride, was forced to stand down over her expenses claims. Mr Javid replaced her at the general election.

Ms Kirkbrides husband, Andrew MacKay, who was a senior adviser and confidant of David Cameron, also stood down as an MP in 2010 when it was revealed that the pair had indulged in double-dipping, both claiming whopping allowances for second homes, based on the pretence that neither of their houses was their main address. At a stormy public meeting in May 2009, which was filmed, Mr MacKay was denounced by outraged constituents.

Ms Kirkbride and Mr MacKay were far from alone in having their careers curtailed. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, was forced to stand down at the height of the controversy, and other MPs lost their liberty as well as their jobs. Since the crisis of the summer of 2009, five Labour MPs and two Conservative Peers have been sent to prison for offences relating to their expenses.

Labours David Chaytor was sentenced to 18 months for false accounting and claiming more than 20,000 in expenses fraudulently; Jim Devine MP got 16 months for false accounting; Eric Illsley was sent down for a year; Elliot Morley claimed 16,000 for a mortgage that did not exist and was sentenced to 16 months; and Denis MacShane was recently released from prison after being sentenced to six months.

Two Tory Peers Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield went to prison after being convicted of false accounting. And Margaret Moran, who spent 22,000 of taxpayers money on treating dry rot at her partners home and claimed travel expenses for driving more than 26,000 miles, even though her constituency was only 30 miles from London, was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

In addition, ahead of the 2010 general election, a long list of MPs decided in the manner of Ms Kirkbride and Mr MacKay to announce that they would not be standing. Others were forced to stand aside by their party leaders, who were desperate to prove they were responding in a robust fashion.

If the House of Commons was unpopular before those events of five years ago, it plumbed new depths in the months afterwards. It seemed as though the inhabitants of the Commons lived by an entirely different set of rules from those they represented. The scandal had not only exposed fraud in the more extreme cases, but a lid had been lifted on the strange world of Westminster.

In recent days, another aspect of Westminsters peculiarity has attracted attention. In the aftermath of the acquittal of Nigel Evans, the former deputy Speaker, on charges of rape, parliamentary researchers spoke up about the antics of some MPs who, fuelled by booze available cheaply in the Commons bars and free at receptions, get too close to the young staff who work at Westminster. During his trial, Mr Evanss barrister described his clients drunken overfamiliarity with young male researchers.

To MPs who do not inhabit the bars of Westminster or Whitehall late at night, who get on with their jobs, it is depressing stuff. My constituents think were all at it, says a Labour frontbencher. They think the absolute worst of us. It is not easy explaining that a lot of us are in it for the right reasons.

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MPs' expenses: A scandal that will not die