Revealed: 9 more British car trips MP claimed for while abroad
THE top MP at the centre of a Commons’ expenses row faces fresh allegations of getting taxpayers’ cash for UK car journeys while being on foreign junkets.
David Morris claimed £550 in MPs’ expenses for nine car journeys in Britain while he was visiting Australia, Canada and Nepal, according to official records.
The disclosures come three weeks after The Mail on Sunday revealed how records show he claimed £1,400 in mileage for 25 car journeys while on trips to the Falklands, Gibraltar, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia.
It means Mr Morris, aide to Scottish Secretary David Mundell, appears to have racked up nearly £2,000 in mileage expenses for 34 car journeys covering 5,944 miles, which coincide with him being on 14 foreign visits.
The Morecambe and Lunesdale MP continues to deny any wrongdoing and blames ‘inept’ officials at the Commons’ expenses watchdog, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), for ‘discrepancies’ in his expenses claims.
But it also emerged yesterday that a member of the public has complained to the Metropolitan Police over Mr Morris’s mileage claims.
The latest controversy surrounds nine mileage claims by Mr Morris when official reports say he was on three foreign trips. According to a report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, he was on an eightday visit to Nepal in February 2011. But he is also recorded as filing a £26 mileage claim in his Lancashire constituency on February 25, the day before the Nepal trip finished. Between August 20 and 24, 2012, Mr Morris is listed as one of five MPs on a five-day visit to Australia with a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) delegation. Official expenses records show he claimed £153 for four separate car journeys in his constituency during the same period. Between April 5 and 13, 2014, a CPA report says he was part of a delegation who visited Canada, though records show he claimed £370 in UK mileage over the same period. Three of the nine latest expenses claims highlighted relate to the day he either left or arrived back in the UK. Mr Morris has previously blamed IPSA’s ‘antiquated’ computer system for getting his claims wrong. But an IPSA spokesman defended the accuracy of its records, saying all dates relating to Mr Morris’s expenses claims were provided by the MP.