MPs Expenses Review: ‘No Issues’ for David Taylor

As part of the ongoing review into MPs expenses, David Taylor has been told that he has ‘no issues’ by Sir Thomas Legg.

Earlier this year, the House of Commons asked Sir Thomas Legg to carry out a review of their 'ACA' expenses (these are the expenses paid to MPs for living in London). Since June, a team of Commons officials under the stewardship of Sir Thomas Legg has been leafing through hundreds of thousands of expenses claims of every MP going back to April 2004. Sir Thomas presented his report this week to the Members Estimate Committee.

David said “I was both pleased and relieved to receive this letter from Sir Thomas. While MPs of all parties accept the need for change, I know many are concerned at some of the retrospective and unprecedented changes Sir Thomas has made to the rules on MPs’ expenses

“In my own case, well before this furore erupted I had previously said that when I am no longer an MP and have no need of them, it is only right that I should return the whole value of permanent items such as furniture to the public purse. The new emergency interim rules announced in May by the Speaker said that furniture should be no longer be claimed for so I decided at that time to apply those new rules retrospectively for the life of this Parliament and made that refund immediately based on the full funded purchase price.
“Saying you’ve abided by the old rules is now no defence as these have been totally discredited and will certainly be replaced by something much more specific and more transparent. I have no problem with that - I have long signposted constituents to the theyworkforyou.com website which has always carried headline expenses.
“However, I do believe that it is vital that we do not come up with a system that effectively excludes many ordinary people – such as myself - from growing up to represent their home area as its MP. We must not allow Parliament to be the sole-preserve of the well-off, the well-connected and political insiders.”
Ends

Notes to Editors

In all, Sir Thomas’s team has been examining the claims of 645 sitting MPs, as well as the 50 who lost their seats and the 86 who retired from Parliament at the last general election.
The results of the Legg review have now been published, along with the total amount of money paid back by MPs
MPs’ expenses will now be published on a quarterly basis, modelled on a system from the Scottish Parliament.
In the latest figures published by the House of Commons for the financial year 2008/9, David Taylor was the lowest claimer of all Leicester and Leicestershire MPs receiving less than half of what he was entitled to claim under the rules.