18 June 2009

Cameron Hands Back Expenses

As the row on Parliamentary expenses rumbles on, the Conservative Leader David Cameron has revealed that he is to repay almost £1,000 he wrongly claimed.

He had already announced his intention to pay back £680 he claimed towards repairs at his second home in Oxfordshire, but today, he has written to the Commons Fees Office volunteering the repayment of £947.29 - including the £680 for repairs - after identifying a series of further over-claims.

"Over the last few weeks, I have carefully gone through the claims I have made against the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) since 2004," he wrote.

"This has brought to light a number of points. I would like to make clear that these were discovered as a result of a thorough review by my office, not as a result of media inquiries."

The additional amounts for which he is reimbursing the Fees Office include £218.91 in mortgage over-claims resulting from "an inadvertent administrative error" arising from changes to his home loan arrangements and £9 he was over-compensated for on an electricity and gas bill.

They also include £10 too much he received for a researcher's phone bill and £29.38 he claimed towards a banner on his website he was subsequently asked by the Commons to take down.

The move came as Freedom of Information (FoI) campaigners described the publication of MPs' expenses with key information missing as "the worst possible outcome".

Nevertheless, millions of receipts are now available for anyone to access on the Parliamentary website even though members' addresses have been crossed out - hidden behind thick black lines - making it impossible to monitor their living arrangements or check which property they are claiming for.

Some receipts have been blacked out completely after MPs were given the opportunity to apply to the fees office to have certain information removed.

Without unedited material being leaked to The Daily Telegraph previously - said to have been passed on by a former SAS officer - then various arrangements now 'blacked out' would never have come to light.

These include PM Gordon Brown's arrangement with his brother to pay for their cleaner and would not have been revealed if access had only been available to the blacked out version of the receipts.

See: Criticism Follows MP's Expenses Publication

(BMcC/NS)