200 MPs may go in great expenses storm
AS MANY as 200 MPs could be stepping down or losing their seats in the great expenses storm, experts predicted last night.
Three more MPs announced yesterday that they would be quitting, making a total of 12 who are to step down before or at the next general election.
First of yesterday’s MP victims was Tory Julie Kirkbride following revelations involving the homes that she and her fellow-MP husband had got taxpayers to pay for.
She was followed by Labour’s Margaret Moran and Tory Christopher Fraser.
All three continued to insist they had done nothing wrong.
Last night it emerged that disgraced MPs are set to cost taxpayers an astonishing £335,000 each.
Honourable members exposed as expenses cheats and choosing to step down will collect around £230,000 in wages, pension contributions and expenses over the next year.
That will be topped off with up to £105,000 in golden goodbye payments.
Campaigners called for MPs forced to step down to quit the Commons immediately, instead of waiting for up to a year.
Susie Squire, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Any disgraced MPs should step down immediately and give their constituents the chance to elect someone they can be proud of.”
She added: “There should be no payoffs or resettlement grants for guilty MPs. They have fleeced taxpayers of quite enough.”
Last night Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg also called for shamed MPs to go now.
He said: “Why do people need to wait to have their say? If MPs have done something wrong then surely people in their constituencies should have the right to sack them.”
With up to 200 members of the Commons possibly stepping down or losing their seats because of the scandal, the total bill to taxpayers for so-called “zombie MPs” over the next year could reach almost £70million.
MPs who stay on in Westminster for another year will collect almost £65,000 in salary, plus £20,000 in pension contributions and an average £144,000 in expenses. By standing down at the next election instead of quitting immediately they are eligible for a resettlement grant of up to 100 per cent of their salary with the first £30,000 tax-free.
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That means MPs such as long-serving Sir Nicholas Winterton will collect another £65,000 while Ms Kirkbride will get around £32,500. Retiring MPs also collect a winding-up allowance of £40,799 supposed to be spent on employing staff to tie up loose ends.
On top of the immediate costs of £335,000, taxpayers will also pay for disgraced MPs’ lavish, index-linked pensions.
Those over 65 qualify for annual payouts of up to £48,000 while reduced pensions can be taken from 55.
Ms Kirkbride finally agreed to quit yesterday morning after it was revealed that she extended her taxpayer-subsidised mortgage by £50,000 so her brother could have his own room.
There were also allegations she had employed the wife of her local Conservative Association chairman as her secretary and given their daughter a job as their nanny.
The final act in her political career came almost a fortnight after it emerged that she and her fellow-MP husband Andrew MacKay had arranged their Commons expenses to claim almost £250,000.
Ms Kirkbride, 48, listed her constituency address as her second home while Mr MacKay listed their London property – meaning taxpayers picked up all of their living costs.
Tory leader David Cameron had tried to support Ms Kilbride but the continuing revelations had left her fatally damaged by yesterday morning.
Mr Cameron said he respected Ms Kirkbride’s decision to stand down and insisted she made had it herself.
But Ms Kirkbride yesterday refused to admit any wrong-doing. In a letter to Mr Cameron, she added: “My principal concern has to be for my very loyal local supporters in Bromsgrove whose trust in me has been very humbling in the last few weeks.”
However more than 5,000 constituents had signed a petition calling for her to go.
South West Norfolk’s Christopher Fraser allegedly spent £1,800 on trees at his constuency home. He insisted his wife’s health problems were to blame and the matter was unconnected to the row.
Minister Tony McNulty, who is being investigated over claiming allowances for the house where his parents live, has repaid thousands of pounds he “mistakenly’’ received, it emerged yesterday.
The Work and Pensions Minister has returned £2,600 for mortgage interest payments and £455 for council tax. But a spokesman insisted it related to “calculation errors’’ rather than basic problems with the claims.
Mr McNulty has denied wrongdoing, insisting he regularly works at the Harrow home but in March announced he had stopped claiming the second home payment.
He owns the house which is in his Harrow East constituency, 11 miles from Parliament, and lives with his wife in her house three miles from Westminster.
Scotland Yard is considering whether to launch a formal probe into his expenses arrangements, and those of other MPs.
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