MPs pay back £500,000
Friday, 19 June 2009 12:41 PM
By politics.co.uk staff
MPs have repaid £487,616 to parliamentary authorities since the expenses scandal began in May.
The figures, released by the Commons Members Estimate Committee, shows 182 MPs from all parties have ended up paying money back into the public purse.
Cabinet ministers ended up paying back £23,443, while the shadow Cabinet paid back £30,348.
The prime minister made four separate payments, totalling £800, to correct "inadvertent errors" or for the avoidance of doubt.
International development secretary Douglas Alexander repaid £12,000, a fact revealed for the first time this morning.
A spokesman for Mr Alexander said the money related to the renting out of an adjacent property.
Meanwhile, Elliot Morely - barred from standing at the next election by Labour's internal committee - repaid £12,000 in mortgage interest.
"There was a capital payment which, of course, is not allowed," he told the Press Association.
"I repaid the capital element."
The new information follows a spectacular own-goal by parliament, which finally responded to a Freedom of Information request for their expenses yesterday by publishing a list which had been so heavily redacted most of the worst abuses would have escaped scrutiny.
The repayments vary wildly, with Labour backbencher paying back £1 while Phil Hop, currently care services minister, paying back £40,000.
But new information can be gleaned from the files, including a £14,320 repayment by Labour MP Paddy Tipping for mortgage interest payments which increased after he took out a larger mortgage with the aim of redecoration and improvement of the property.
He told the BBC: "What was permissible in 2003 is clearly not permissibly in 2009."
Yesterday, Tory leader David Cameron agreed to pay back nearly £1,000 pounds, £600 of which he had already announced.
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