For Bill Cash it's payback or else
TORY grandee Bill Cash was forced into a humiliating and costly climbdown over his expenses yesterday after a row with David Cameron.
Mr Cash said he would repay up to £15,000 after it emerged he had charged taxpayers £1,200 a month to rent his daughter Laetitia’s London flat.
The eurosceptic rebel had tried to ignore fury over the revelations, refusing to repay any money and claiming that “what is lawful is appropriate”.
But the Tory leader said Mr Cash had very serious questions to answer in an apparent threat to expel him from the party.
Mr Cameron said: “He needs to co-operate with those inquiries. Everyone knows the consequences of not participating.”
Mr Cash then revealed why he had used public money to rent the flat in Notting Hill, west London, from his socialite daughter – his son Sam lives in his Westminster flat rent free.
Tory chief whip Patrick McLoughlin phoned him to deliver a final warning.
Minutes later Mr Cash announced he would pay the money back but added: “But I obviously need to look at the situation as it develops.”
He later said: “I happen to think, in retrospect, that if I was asked ‘would I do it now?’ The answer is I don’t think I would.”
Mr Cash insisted he still hoped to stand for his Stone, Staffs, constituency but there were suspicions last night that Tory high command would not be sorry to see him go.
Miss Cash, 35, who is hoping to become a Tory MP and is on David Cameron’s A list of preferred candidates, sold the flat for a £48,000 profit.
She had owned it for less than 18 months and for more than 12 months her father had paid her rent from taxpayer funds.
Following the sale, Mr Cash stayed at private clubs for three months.
