Brown may have to repay expenses

Gordon Brown may have to pay back some of his expense claims

Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have to pay back some of his expense claims, the BBC understands.

The BBC's political correspondent Iain Watson said it is "highly likely" that Mr Brown will have to pay back cash.

Whitehall sources have indicated "the majority" of MPs will either have to justify their claims or pay money back following an independent review.

A senior Conservative said this would be needed if the mistrust of MPs caused by the scandal was to be "purged".

Letters

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said every MP must answer for what they claimed and respond accordingly.

After details of claims since 2004 were published earlier this year, MPs agreed to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds while several have said they will quit Parliament at the next election.

Mr Brown is among possibly hundreds of MPs due to receive letters this week from the auditor appointed to investigate expense claims over the past five years.

Former senior civil servant Sir Thomas Legg is understood to be writing to the MPs asking them to either give more details on their expense claims or to pay the money back into the public purse.

IAIN WATSON, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT The Prime Minister is likely to become a victim of his own clean-up campaign. Back in May, facing difficult European elections - and a welter of expense allegations in the Telegraph, it was Gordon Brown himself who called for all claims on MPs' second homes to be independently audited. Now that they have been, it's highly likely he too may have to stump up some cash. Indeed he's already paid back £153 for wrongly claiming twice for a plumbing bill. Any further repayments may be modest but the political damage is likely to be much greater. Although there is no suggestion of impropriety on his part -and even though his opposite number David Cameron has already paid back nearly £1,000 in expenses himself - polling suggests that voters place more blame on the government than the opposition.

Last May it emerged that Mr Brown had paid his brother Andrew £6,577 for arranging cleaning services for his Westminster flat for 26 months.

At the time, Downing Street said the brothers had shared a cleaner who worked in both their flats. Andrew Brown had paid her wages and had then been reimbursed by the prime minister, who then claimed cleaning expenses.

It was also revealed the prime minister had claimed twice for the same plumbing work within six months of each other. The House of Commons Fees Office said this had been an "inadvertent mistake".

It apologised for having not spotted it and Mr Brown is understood to have repaid the sum involved - believed to be £150.

It was also reported that Mr Brown may have billed taxpayers for his Sky Sports subscription.

On Saturday Mr Brown told a newspaper that "the worst offenders" among MPs who claimed bogus expenses should be prosecuted.

'Switching' homes

After the claims were made public in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year, many MPs were accused of extravagance, over-claiming and avoiding tax on home sales.

Several were found to have repeatedly "switched" their designated second homes, meaning they were able to refurbish both their homes at public expense.

The BBC understands that Sir Thomas - who was appointed by Downing Street - has been looking at whether MPs were using money to improve their properties, rather than just maintain them as the rules allow.

He is also thought to have examined instances where MPs used public money to pay off the capital on their mortgages, rather than mortgage interest.

WITHIN THE RULES £24,000-a-year Additional Costs Allowance, which covers the running of MPs' second homes £22,193-a-year Incidental Expenses Provision, which pays for running an office £10,400-a-year Communications Allowance, which funds websites, newsletters, stationery and postage

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson says Sir Thomas will allow MPs to make "fair representations" if their claims are challenged - but once that process is complete, his full report will be made public, probably in December.

MPs from all parties have already repaid hundreds of thousands of pounds in claims which, while within the rules at the time, they now accept were excessive or inappropriate.

David Cameron has repaid £947, relating to maintenance costs on his constituency home and other items which he said were claimed due to an "inadvertent error".

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has also repaid about £80 relating to the cost of mobile phone calls.

Meanwhile, the police have said they are investigating the claims of a "small number" of MPs to see if there are grounds for criminal charges to be brought against them.

'Real mess'

Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said that while Parliament had agreed to hand over scrutiny of future expenses to an external body, an independent audit of past claims was vital.

"We have changed the law, we have made a lot of changes for the future but we all know that this whole thing has been a real mess," she told Sky News.

"So it's a good thing that we're getting all this independent scrutiny of what has happened over the last few years as well."

Mr Grayling is among a handful of Conservative MPs who have agreed to forego the allowance paying for a second property in London following the public outcry over expenses.

The MP for Epsom and Ewell said he believed it was "justified" for him to have had a subsidised second home in the past as he worked "long and variable hours".

But he said he accepted the "world had now changed".

"I believe the best way for us to deal with this is to go through a full audit of what has been done and if we have done things wrong and if we have claimed money inappropriately, then clearly we should repay it," he told the Politics Show.

He added: "If we are going to purge our politics, each one of us individually has to be willing to take a lead."

The Sunday Telegraph reported 325 MPs could be facing further queries about their expense claims, although this figure could not be verified independently.