The prospect of politicians being prosecuted over the scandal of Parliamentary expenses moved a significant step closer yesterday when police files on four MPs and peers were passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is expected to decide whether to prosecute the MPs and peers in the new year. That means charges could be laid before a general election but would be unlikely to come to court until after polling day.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said last night: "We have delivered four main files of evidence relating to parliamentary expenses to the Crown Prosecution Service. The files relate to four people, from both the House of Lords and the House of Commons and will now be subject to CPS consideration on whether there should be any charges.".
The CPS said: "Any decisions on whether or not there should be any charges in relation to these files will be made as quickly as is reasonably practical."
The police declined to name the politicians involved. However, it is understood that detectives have been investigating six figures – the Labour MPs Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, Labour peers Baroness Uddin and Lord Clarke of Hampstead and the Tory peer Lord Hanningfield. Police inquiries are continuing and there is speculation that more cases will be referred to prosecutors in the next few weeks. All the politicians have denied any criminal wrongdoing.
Although previous police investigations, including the 15-month inquiry into "cash for peerages" allegations, resulted in no prosecutions, police are said to be confident that charges will be brought over the expenses scandal.
The CPS will have to decide whether there would be a realistic chance of conviction and whether prosecutions would be in the public interest.
Mr Morley and Mr Chaytor both claimed thousands of pounds for "phantom" mortgages they had paid off. Mr Devine submitted invoices for electrical work worth £2,157 from a company with an allegedly false address and an invalid VAT number.
Lord Hanningfield, the leader of Essex County Council, claimed £100,000 over seven years for staying in London despite living 46 miles from the capital. Lord Clarke, a former Labour Party chairman, admitted his "terrible error" after claiming up to £18,000 a year for overnight subsistence when he often stayed with friends in London or returned to his home in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Baroness Uddin allegedly claimed £100,000 in allowances by registering her main home as a property in Maidstone, Kent, that was apparently rarely occupied.
Wide-ranging measures to rebuild confidence in politicians by putting MPs and the public back in control of Parliament following the expenses crisis are demanded today by an all-party Commons committee.
They warned that Parliament was going through a "crisis of confidence not experienced in our lifetimes", with MPs held in lower regard than ever before. The 18-strong Commons Reform Committee, set up in the wake of the expenses scandal, said the influence of minsters had to be curbed and Parliament made more responsive to voters' concerns.
It called for the creation of a secretly elected backbench business committee to take charge of the Commons agenda. At least one day a week would be given over to subjects dictated by ordinary MPs instead of topics selected by frontbenchers.
Today's report suggested that the chairs of select committees, which monitor the work of Whitehall departments, should be elected by secret ballot rather than chosen by the party whips. The committees should also be streamlined to enable them to hold government better to account.
It warned that the Commons is "insufficiently responsive" to the public, suggesting that petitions to Parliament should be treated more seriously, on occasion triggering debates in the Commons. The committee said that the expenses scandal had brought a "storm of public disapproval and contempt".
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