by Chris McLaughlin
Labour chiefs are to face calls to allow party members to punish MPs caught in the parliamentary expenses scandal.
Demands will be made at next week’s meeting of the National Executive Committee meeting for constituency parties to be able to deselect MPs whose claims, or failure to pay back cash where appropriate, are deemed to have rendered them unsuitable to stand again under the Labour banner.
The move follows a rush of MPs wishing to pay back money they claimed under the discredited allowances and expenses system, with one, health minister Phil Hope, reimbursing the taxpayer by more than £40,000.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown called during this week’s parliamentary question time for a new, transparent system to be introduced “as soon as “possible”. He also called for all expenses receipts to be put on line when the money is spent saying: “I hope every member looking at these issues knows that if trust in politics disappears the political system cannot work properly.”
The remark reflects the deep concerns among Labour and Tory MPs that the voters will punish the parties, and individual MPs named in exposures in the Daily Telegraph. David Cameron forced his frontbenchers to hand
back sums on penalty of losing their jobs and has re-
written his party’s rules on parliamentary expenses.
Some NEC members believe constituency party members should have a role in deciding whether sitting MPs caught up in the affair are still eligible to stand for re-election. They are to request a re-examination of the rule book to make it possible for parties to deselect those considered as an electoral liability.
Peter Kenyon, one of the NEC members pressing for CLPs to have a role, has been campaigning through his website. He said: “There needs to be a review of the public standing of sitting MPs and appropriate action taken. Every local party at the next general election needs to know that it is fielding a candidate beyond reproach.”
He welcomed the Government’s announcement of a retrospective audit of expenses and allowances going back to 2004 which, he said, would “provide a benchmark against which to judge our elected representatives seeking re-election”.
One minister told Tribune that Mr Brown had been attempting to get agreement on a change in the system for some time but that Mr Cameron had raised obstacles. Relations between the two men are said to be personally strained.
“It should have been sorted before now”, he said. “Now we have this earthquake and our own people will think worse of us. They used to think we had better values than the Tories.”
