Alan Milburn admits being 'careless' over expenses
I hate to harp on about Alan Milburn and expenses, but at having to repay £11,600 - I will.
His case seems to have emphasised again just what went wrong at the heart of the MPs' expenses regime.
The reason why Alan Milburn had such a large bill was because he had failed to follow the progress of his mortgage, and the Fees Office failed to pick it up.
Instead of revising his mortgage claim down during interest rate cuts, or when it was adjusted to take into account the capital he'd repayed, he kept claiming the same amount.
He admits it was carelessness.
He was guilty of a similar error in his council tax, claiming his monthly bill for 12 months, rather than the 10 that his council tax was charged over.
Now, there was no attempt to defraud in all this, but shouldn't we expect MPs to check their claims with the same rigour that they use in their political life?
After all, Alan Milburn is a man who has run departments of state.
So you might well ask why he couldn't work out that his mortgage interest wouldn't always remain constant, or that he paid no council tax in February and March?
But in some cases variations in mortgage rates led MPs to underclaim.
Initially, Sir Thomas Legg asked Redcar's Vera Baird to repay £1,279 in mortgage interest.
But when she appealed, it became clear that she'd underclaimed.
Vera Baird says she'd made an arrangement with the Fees Office about her mortgage interest because her building society didn't send regular enough updates to calculate the payments accurately every month.
Because of that she'd underclaimed more often than overclaimed.
The repayment was therefore waived on appeal, and she had nothing to pay.
"My name is clear and that is right," she said in a statement. 
Here anyway is the final Legg verdict on all the region's MPs, including just for balance those who had no issues:
Dave Anderson (Labour, Blaydon) - Nothing to pay.
Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham) - Nothing to pay.
Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar) - Asked to pay back £1,279 mortgage interest, but reduced to £0 on appeal.
Sir Alan Beith (Lib Dem, Berwick) - Asked to pay £1,841 in rent, but reduced to £0 on appeal.
Sir Struart Bell (Labour, Middlesbrough) - Nothing to pay.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham) - Nothing to pay.
Nick Brown (Labour, Newcastle East) - Asked to pay back £697 in cleaning claims. Had not paid it back by Thursday but says he is doing now.
Stephen Byers (Labour, Tyneside North) - Has paid back £1,125 in excessive claims for cleaning.
Alan Campbell (Labour, Tynemouth) - Nothing to pay.
Ronnie Campbell (Labout, Blyth Valley) - Paid back £1,892, for duplicated claims on council tax, service charges and electricity.
David Clelland (Labour, Tyne Bridge) - Asked to pay back £13,401 in mortgage interest, but on appeal that was reduced to £300.
Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North) - Asked to pay back £1,652 for overpaid council tax and for an excessive claim for a new fridge. Paid back £1,019 for the council tax, but the fridge cost was waived on appeal.
Jim Cousins (Labour, Newcastle Central) - Nothing to pay.
John Cummings (Labour, Easington) Asked to pay back £180, £130 for excessive cleaning claims, and £50 for a Christmas bonus for the cleaner. Has actually paid back £2,907.
Tony Cunningham (Labour, Workington) - Paid back £2,718 in mortgage interest.
David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon) - Paid back £1,676. Part of a bill for employing consulting engineers to look at some renovations to his second home. It was deemed excessive by Sir Thomas.
Bill Etherington (Labour, Sunderland North) - Paid back £434 in mortgage interest.
Tim Farron (Lib Dem, Westmorland and Lonsdale) Paid back £235 in removal costs.
Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland) - Nothing to pay.
Robert Goodwill (Conservative, Scarborough and Whitby) - Nothing to pay.
John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale) - Paid back £537 for plants he bought for his garden. Appealed against the repayment but lost his appeal.
William Hague (Conservative, Richmond) - Paid back £691 in mortgage interest.
Doug Henderson (Labour, Newcastle North) - Nothing to pay.
Stephen Hepburn (Labour, Jarrow) - Repaid £2321 in mortgage interest.
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Gateshead E and Washington W) - Nothing to pay.
Kevan Jones (Labour, Durham North) - Nothing to pay.
Ashok Kumar (Labour, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) - Paid back £450 of what was viewed as an excessive £2,650 claim for a sofa and chair.
David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and the Border) - Nothing to pay.
Eric Martlew (Labour, Carlisle) - Nothing to pay.
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York) - Asked to pay back £948 for excessive gardening claims. Had not paid it back by Thursday.
Alan Milburn (Labour, Darlington) - Paid back £11,600 in mortgage interest, service charges and overpaid council tax.
David Miliband (Labour, South Shields) - Paid back £808 in mortgage interest.
Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South) - Asked to pay back £1,299 on mortgage interest and for claiming a mortgage fee. Reduced on appeal to £440.
Denis Murphy (Labour, Wansbeck) - Asked to pay back £1,841 for excessive cleaning claims, mortgage interest and £50 in bank fees for a rejected direct debit. Had yet to pay it by Thursday.
Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland) Nothing to pay.
Dari Taylor (Labour, Stockton South) - Repaid £719 after a service charge was claimed twice.
Phil Willis (Libe Dem, Harrogate) - Repaid £5,363 in excessive cleaning claims, council tax, electricity and water.
Phil Wilson (Labour, Sedgefield) - Repaid £225 for duplicate electricity claim.
Iain Wright (Labour, Hartlepool) - Repaid £806 in mortgage interest.
Former MPs:
Lord Mandelson - Repaid £800 in gardening claims.
Baroness Quin - Asked to pay back £1504 for bathroom equipment bought in the last days of her time as an MP. But won on appeal and now has nothing to pay.
Lawrie Quinn - The former Labour MP for Scarborough and Whitby has repaid £954 in rent.
I'm Richard Moss, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Political Editor for the North East and Cumbria. Welcome to my irreverent - but hopefully insightful - northern take on reporting politics for Look North and the Politics Show.
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