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Three Labour MPs and one Tory peer are to face charges under the Theft Act over their expenses claims.

Elliot Morley, Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Lord Hanningfield will be charged with false accounting, the public prosecutions director has said.

If found guilty they face a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment.

BBC News


"We are confident of our position and have been advised by eminent QCs."

I hope that wasn't Cherie Blair

I see that they are hoping to use Parliamentary privilege to wriggle out of it. Though that's about protecting MPs from slander charges rather than being caught stealing.
I feel a bit sorry for them really.

This sort of thing is widespread and commonplace in all large organisations that pay expenses as well as for MPs, so it does seem unfair to pick on them.

Even I have done it. I claimed 3.00 for breakfast on the train to London as I was entitled to that but took a piece of toast and used the money to pay for fares to the city to catch the train as I was not entitled to that part of the journey being paid.

I never progressed to moving in circles where I could make a nice profit because I preferred to not be in the circles to having the nice profit.
Lucky the toaster didn't break down. :)
I don't think there's much chance they will get locked up anyway. I just like the idea of them being reminded they are not above the law. I expect it will boil down to a really strict telling off in the end.

I think we can let you off claiming the £3 Furby. :) Anyway I don't feel too bad about the ones who just stretched it a bit. Some of them seem to have made a business out of it though.

Some of them had the cheek to claim the expense of legal advice they got to find the best ways to fiddle the expenses.
Claiming mortgage expenses on a mortgage that was paid off a few years earlier, as Elliot Morley did, is just theft.
Further on the story that legal representatives of the three Labour MPs have queried the use of parliamentary privilege to avoid prosecution:

According to Beeb Online:
[The accused] "maintain that this is an issue that should be resolved by the parliamentary commissioner who is there to enforce any breach of the rules."

Well of course they would do wouldn't they? The parliamentary commisioner would probably just slap their wrists and ask them to repay the amount. If convicted of a criminal act then they could go to jail.

The MPs have been deselected for the next election so they have little to lose by dragging the Houses into more disrepute in order to save their worthless skins.

The four men will not be arrested but will be sent a summons to turn up on 11 March at City of Westminster magistrates court, a short walk from the Houses of Parliament.

I trust they will not be claiming expenses for their day in court, although I wouldn't put it past them.



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