County’s MPs hail expenses scrutiny (From Bournemouth Echo)

County’s MPs hail expenses scrutiny

10:22am Monday 1st June 2009 in Search By Steven Smith

DORSET MPs have welcomed a full examination of their expenses.

Announcing a legally-binding code of conduct, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that every MP would have to go through a “star chamber”, where all receipts for the past four years would be examined.

Jim Knight, Labour’s South Dorset MP and schools minister, said: “I have been saying since this broke that this all needs to be dealt with independently, that MPs’ claims need to be independently scrutinised, new rules need to be independently set and in the future we need to be independently audited.”

He said it was crucial that the examination of MPs’ expenses was done quickly, as he believed a general election could only be called once voters had the full facts.

Replay the live blogs by Annette Brooke, Tobias Ellwood and Jim Knight

See the Related Links at the bottom of this story

Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, said: “I absolutely welcome it. It should have started months ago. Last July I voted for an independent audit of MPs’ expenses.

“All of these things should have been in place long ago and this should have been done even more quickly, because I think it will be better to have it done that way than to have the Telegraph and go through it day after day.

There should be a big team to do this as quickly as possible and then I think we should have an autumn election.”

Tobias Ellwood, Conservative MP for Bournemouth East, was not available, but during his live blog on the Echo’s website on Friday, he said responsibility for expenses should be removed from the fees office and MPs.

He added: “To show my transparency I told the Echo over a year ago anyone interested in seeing my expenses is more than welcome to get in touch, so I hope that proves that I am supportive of a transparent system.”