MPs are Commons criminals

GREEDY MPs snatched a further £10million in lavish Commons expenses last year while tax bills for millions of households soared, it was revealed last night.

Labour MP Quentin Davies claimed 20 000 for repairing the bell tower at his mansion Labour MP Quentin Davies claimed £20,000 for repairing the bell tower at his mansion

Government minister Quentin Davies claimed £20,700 for repairing the bell tower and roof at his country home while a ­senior Tory took taxpayers’ money for maintenance work on his waterwheel.

Others claimed public money for garlic crushers, apple tree pruning and even a “robot cleaner”. A Labour whip submitted a bill for having crumbs removed from his sofa and another Labour MP claimed almost £2,000 for a “luxury bath”.

The expenses included a claim from Gordon Brown for £2,713 to decorate a downstairs toilet in his constituency home in Fife. The Prime Minister voluntarily repaid £500 in expenses claimed for painting the summerhouse at the property. Further questions were raised about bills for a series of lengthy phone calls from his Scottish home. Downing Street officials last night refused to discuss the mystery calls to an address in Canterbury.

Dozens of MPs, many due to retire at the next election, scooped the maximum possible under the discredited allowances system.

Last night, as a fresh wave of public revulsion greeted the latest sordid revelations about the Westminster gravy train, it was revealed that shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is to repay more than £9,500 in expenses after a sleaze watchdog found him in breach of Commons rules. But he will escape further punishment after MPs accepted an earlier apology over allowing his agent to stay rent-free in his taxpayer-subsidised second home.

Public fury was heightened by grim warnings of the huge tax bill the country faces for Labour’s £178billion borrowing binge. Families face a £2,400-a-year squeeze on their incomes after the next election because of a £76billion black hole concealed in Chancellor Alistair Darling’s mini-Budget.

Full details of MPs’ expenses claims for the financial year 2008-09 were released by Commons authorities yesterday.

They showed that MPs carried on claiming despite the looming row over their allowances system. And it also emerged yesterday that MPs’ salaries will be exempt from the one per cent pay rise limit the Chancellor announced across the public sector.

Willie Sullivan, of the parliamentary reform group Vote For A Change, said: “These new revelations are further evidence of how removed MPs are from their voters. It is little wonder that the public are totally disenchanted with politics.”

The figures showed that 60 MPs claimed the maximum £24,000 for second homes last year. And around 50 “flipped” the designation of their second home. But it was the details of many of the claims that fuelled public anger.

Documents showed Quentin Davies, defence minister in charge of supplying troops in Afghanistan, submitted a claim for renovating a bell tower on his 18th century mansion, Frampton Hall in Lincolnshire.

Tory backbencher Crispin Blunt was paid £400 for main­tenance on his home including work on a “water wheel structure”. Labour MP Harry Cohen claimed £1,997.65 for a luxury bath. A letter from the Leyton and Wanstead MP to the Commons Fees Office said the bath was to replace his marble tile surrounded Jacuzzi, which had become “unhygienic”.

He also claimed for ecological toilet cleaner and recycled toilet paper, and “Organic Energising Hand Wash with Rosemary and Lemongrass Oils”. Tory MP James Arbuthnot claimed £43 for three garlic crushers, Labour minister Phil Hope claimed £2 for a hamburger machine and Tory Andrew Selous claimed 55p for a mug of Horlicks.

Deputy Speaker Sylvia Heal, Labour MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, claimed £417 for tiling her kitchen floor, repairs to the kitchen sink and fitting a new electric shower.

Julie Kirkbride, Tory MP for Bromsgrove, who has already been shamed into standing down over her brother living at her taxpayer-funded “second home”, spent £175 on a shaving mirror.

The Government last night rushed out new plans for toughening up the expenses regime.

Under proposals announced by Commons Leader Harriet Harman, MPs who abuse their expenses face being fined by Parliament’s standards watchdog.

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