MP claimed expenses for UK car trips ...while he was away on foreign junkets like this
Mystery over ‘pop star’ Tory’s £1,400 claims – but he blames watchdog
AN MP was involved in a new expenses row last night over Commons records that showed he claimed £1,400 expenses from taxpayers for driving in the UK – while he was on official foreign junkets.
Tory David Morris claimed for 25 trips covering 4,402 miles.
They included journeys of 250 miles between Westminster and his constituency in Morecambe, Lancashire.
According to official expenses records, the journeys were made when he was out of Britain on 11 foreign ‘fact-finding’ trips, including to Gibraltar, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, the Falklands and Estonia.
Mr Morris, 50, a former musician who once appeared on Top Of The Pops, pointed the finger of blame at Parliament’s ‘inept’ expenses bosses for the discrepancies.
He said that he was confident that he would be able to explain the apparent inconsistencies when he has access to his Commons records tomorrow.
The MP said he believed the discrepancies could be an error by the Commons expenses watchdog, the Independent Parliament Standards Authority (IPSA).
Details of Mr Morris’s mileage claims are published on IPSA’s official website.
His overseas trips are declared on the separate MPs’ official register of interest.
A comparison of the two records shows that Mr Morris claimed mileage in the UK for 11 journeys when he was on four separate trips to Gibraltar over a total of 15 days.
Most of the £479 claimed during his Gibraltar visits was for ‘mileage in constituency’ – whereby MPs are able to claim expenses to visit constituents or attend constituency functions.
In February this year, Mr Morris is recorded as being on a week-long parliamentary trip to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
According to the records, he claimed £151.75 in mileage for three journeys – all made in the middle of the week when he was officially in the Falklands flying the flag for Britain.
In April this year, he is recorded as having claimed £390 for four car journeys during a five-day parliamentary trip to the United Arab Emirates.
In July 2015, Morris is recorded as being on a week-long parliamentary visit to Taiwan, 6,000 miles from Britain, while claiming £232 for two car journeys ‘within his constituency.’
In February 2014, Mr Morris is recorded as being on a five-day parliamentary trip to Saudi Arabia, while claiming £27 for mileage in Morecambe on the day he left the UK for the Middle East.
Twelve of the MP’s 25 mileage claims relate to either the day he left the UK or arrived back from a parliamentary trip.
Before entering politics, Navy commander’s son Mr Morris, who is divorced, played guitar in pop singer Rick Astley’s backing band and appeared on Top Of The Pops with him. He ran a hairdressing business before becoming an MP in 2010.
Mr Morris has retained his interest in showbusiness and his friend, American actor Michael ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff, visited him at the Commons in 2011 as part of a campaign to reopen Morecambe Winter Gardens.
MPs are allowed to claim 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles covering trips to and from their constituency and trips within their constituency. Over 10,000 miles, the allowance falls to 24p. Claims are made on the basis of trust.
Mr Morris said he believed the discrepancy could be explained by an IPSA mix-up over the date of the claim and the date the money was paid. ‘IPSA sometimes change the dates,’ said the MP. ‘The system is knackered.’
He said he could not provide ‘in-depth’ comments on individual claims until he had checked his records tomorrow.
But he said: ‘I am confident that each claim has been made legitimately. There appears to be a difference between what has appeared on the MPs’ system and what information IPSA have published on the public system.’
An IPSA spokesman declined to comment on Mr Morris’s claims or individual details of his parliamentary expenses.
But one Westminster source said it was possible Mr Morris had ‘muddled up’ travel expenses and costs for his Commons staff and submitted them with his own in error.
‘I’m confident each claim is legitimate’