377 MPs have credit cards suspended by expenses watchdog
Corbyn, Johnson and Rudd among hundreds who broke rules
Hundreds of MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson and nine Cabinet ministers have had official credit cards suspended by the expenses watchdog. They are among the 377 MPs to be penalised since 2015 for breaking the rules by not providing receipts or failing to pay back ineligible expenses.
The Independent Parliamentary standards Authority tried to prevent the disclosure, saying it would have a ‘chilling effect’ on its relations with MPs.
But a former High Court judge reversed the decision, saying that the risk of embarrassing MPs was no reason to keep the information secret. Freedom of information requests from the daily Telegraph show that the rules established in the wake of the expenses scandal – which erupted ten years ago today – are being routinely broken by politicians who still show a ‘lax and casual’ attitude to the way they account for taxpayers’ money. The amount taxpayers have to pay for MPs’ allowances has increased by 22 per cent since 2009.
Last year the expenses bill was £ 117.4million – equivalent to £ 180,000 per MP. This includes accommodation, travel, hotels, subsistence and staffing costs.
Mr Corbyn has apparently had his card suspended twice – in August 2015 and september 2017. Mr Johnson, the former foreign secretary, has had his suspended once.
energy minister Claire Perry, who attends Cabinet, admitted wrongly using her parliamentary credit card to pay for her Amazon Prime subscription.
duP MP Ian Paisley ran up debts of £1,193 and had his credit card suspended while repaying it.
since the 2015 election, 377 MPs have had their credit cards susnation pended, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show. Many are repeat offenders – including Work and Pensions secretary Amber rudd.
nine MPs have had their card suspended more than ten times over the past three years, including prominent Tory backbencher damian Collins and constitution minister Chloe smith.
Other Cabinet ministers, or MPs who sit in Cabinet meetings, to have had their cards suspended include stephen Barclay, Greg Clark, Chris Grayling, robert Buckland, Claire Perry, rory stewart, Jeremy Wright and david Mundell.
sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said: ‘It shows there is either something fundamentally wrong with the system, or we’ve got a bunch of highly incompetent slovenly MPs who can’t keep to the rules. The rest of the would only expect to have to comply in similar circumstances.’
Parliamentary credit cards were introduced following the expenses scandal to ensure spending could be closely monitored.
sir Alistair said MPs have ‘clearly become lax’ and ‘ casual in their approach in meeting the rules’.
He added: ‘If MPs can’t deal with this rather narrow sphere of finances, why should we trust them in dealing with the nation’s finances?’
A spokesman for Miss rudd said: ‘some payment deadlines were missed by the member of staff responsible for these matters. These issues were subsequently resolved.’
A Labour spokesman said: ‘Our MPs’ offices rectify all such administrative issues as soon as they are identified.’
ruth evans, Ipsa chairman, said: ‘Ten years ago, the difficulty of having politicians self regulate their pay and expenses became all too clear. It led to the establishment of Ipsa.
‘since then, Ipsa has established a clear set of rules for MPs to follow and enforced them fairly. The openness and transparency has become a model for legislatures worldwide.’
‘Casual in their approach’