Five MPs involved in the expenses scandal who have not been criticised by Sir Thomas Legg

Five MPs involved in the expenses scandal who have not been criticised by Sir Thomas Legg

Not all MPs who faced questions over their expenses earlier this year have been asked to pay money back so far by Sir Thomas Legg, who is auditing all claims over the past five years.

By Martin Beckford and Holly Watt
Published: 8:30AM BST 15 Oct 2009

Elliot Morley

Elliot Morley, the former agriculture minister, claimed £800 a month for a mortgage on his constituency home, although he had already paid off the mortgage.

The Labour MP repaid more than £16,000 after the Telegraph disclosed that he had claimed the “phantom” mortgage for almost two years.

At the same time that Mr Morley was claiming for a non-existent mortgage at his constituency home, he had also rented out his “main home” in London to a fellow MP, Ian Cawsey.

Mr Morley subsequently returned a further £20,000 to the fees office as he had been claiming for the capital repayments on the Scunthorpe mortgage.

Under the rules, MPs are only allowed to claim mortgage interest costs. Mr Morley was barred from standing as a Labour MP at the next election by party officials.

Brian Binley

Brian Binley, the MP for Northampton South, rented a flat from his own company for over three years. Shortly after he was elected in 2005, BCC Marketing bought a flat in Pimlico for £345,000.

From February 2006, Mr Binley paid the company £1,500 a month, although he and his wife owned 40 per cent of the company and he was the founding chairman.

Two months after Mr Binley moved into the flat, the rules were tightened to bar MPs from renting properties from any company in which they had an interest. However, Mr Binley appealed against the rule change.

Michael Martin, the Speaker at the time, took three years to hear the appeal, but upheld the rules and barred Mr Binley from continuing to rent the flat from his own company. In the interim, Mr Binley paid his company £57,000 in rent.

David Chaytor

The Labour MP for Bury North is under investigation by police over alleged claims for a “phantom mortgage”.

The Daily Telegraph discovered that he had used the second home allowance to claim almost £13,000 in mortgage interest payments on a loan on his Westminster flat that he had already repaid.

The backbencher blamed an “unforgivable error in my accounting procedures”. He “flipped” the designation of his second home six times in five years, including once to a house registered in his son’s name.

Mr Chaytor was also found to have claimed almost £5,000 from his office expenses to pay his daughter under an assumed name.

Mr Chaytor was banned from standing as a Labour candidate again by the party’s “star chamber” and is stepping down at the election.

Shahid Malik

The Labour MP for Dewsbury stepped down as a junior justice minister after this newspaper reported a claim by his landlord, Tahir “Terry’’ Zaman, that he was charging Mr Malik well below the market rent for his Yorkshire home.

Mr Malik was said to be paying less than £100 a week for his “main home” in his constituency while claiming the maximum allowance expenses for his designated second home in London.

He also tried to claim £2,100 for a 40in Sony flatscreen television. Mr Malik was cleared of breaching the ministerial code by Sir Philip Mawer, the former parliamentary standards commissioner, and returned to government as a junior communities minister.

But he faced further questions over claims of £6,500 for a property he called “office 2”, which turned out to be the ground floor of his constituency home.

Hazel Blears

The Labour MP for Salford and former communities secretary claimed expenses for three properties in a single year.

She “flipped” her designated second home from her constituency base, where she had been claiming mortgage interest and furnishings, to a flat in Kennington where the mortgage interest was £850 a month.

She sold the flat for a profit of £45,000 in August 2004 then began charging taxpayers £211 a night for overnight hotel stays.

Miss Blears went on to buy another flat in London and furnish it using public money, including more than £200 on bath towels.

It later emerged that she had lawfully avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of two properties. Miss Blears appeared on television brandishing a cheque for £13,000 in “back tax” but later resigned from the Cabinet.