Northern MPs repay £40,000 in Legg expenses audit
The MPs representing the North East and Cumbria patch have so far repaid £38,971 in overclaimed expenses, according to Sir Thomas Legg.
Another £3,000 plus has yet to be repaid too, according to his audit of MPs' expenses claims from 2004 to 2009.
Overall, 25 of our MPs past and present were asked to repay money. And quite a few other new details have emerged in today's report.
The biggest repayment we didn't know about was made by the Darlington MP Alan Miliburn.
Sir Thomas Legg decided he'd been overpaid by more than £11,600. The bulk of that (£10,107) was overpayment of mortgage interest.
But he also needs to brush up on his council tax. He claimed his monthly bill for 12 months rather than the 10 months (most councils spread the payments over that time to give you a break in February and March).
We also finally know that Tyneside North's Stephen Byers did have to pay money back for an excessive cleaning claim on his second home (ie above £4,000-a-year). He paid back £1,125.
Denis Murphy's repayment bill is also revealed. The Wansbeck MP was asked to pay £1,841.84. More than £1,600 of that was again due to excessive cleaning claims, but he also overclaimed on mortgage interest and wrongly claimed £50 in bank fees caused by the rejection of a direct debit.
According to the report, he did not appeal against the claim but he also has yet to repay it.
Vale of York Conservative Anne McIntosh is also listed as not having repaid her demand yet. She's been asked to repay £948 due to an excessive claim for gardening expenses on her second home.
According to Legg, Chief Whip and North East Minister Nick Brown has also yet to repay the £697.65 he was asked to stump up for excessive cleaning claims.
And we can also see now why David Clelland was so furious about his letter from Sir Thomas.
The Tyne Bridge MP was initially asked to repay more than £13,400 in mortgage interest. As already reported though, he won his appeal and that amount was reduced to £300.
Frank Cook was allowed to claim £1238.41 for a fridge in the end, partly because he says he was unaware of the £605 limit for fridge claims via the "John Lewis list" and partly because he had missed out on payments in other years because he'd hit the maximum allowable claims.
We also found out more about Baroness Quin's appeal. (As Joyce Quin, she was MP for Gateshead and Washington till 2005).
She was pulled up by Legg for claiming £1,500 for replacement bathroom equipment. The work was done on March 27, 2005, just a few days before Parliament dissolved for the 2005 election.
Legg obviously thought this was wrong, but her appeal was granted and she now has nothing to pay.
The former Scarborough and Whitby MP Lawrie Quinn did though repay £950 in overpaid mortgage interest.
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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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