All MPs’ expenses to be published online

OLDHAM MPs will be forced to publish every expense claim they make on the internet as part of Gordon Brown’s plan to clean up Parliament.

The Prime Minister said although Parliament had already agreed to restrict expenses, cap costs for housing and for all spending to be receipted, it did not go far enough.

The scandal of MPs’ expenses rocked Westminster for weeks with outrageous claims being uncovered including an £8,000 TV, £10,000 claimed for an interior designer and MPs claiming for phantom mortgages.

Mr Brown told the Commons: “All MPs’ past and future expenses should and will be published on the internet.”

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Phil Woolas, and Ashton MP David Heyes, opened up their expenses to the Chronicle last month to prove they were not on the Westminster gravy train. And Oldham West and Royton MP Michael Meacher was named by a national newspaper who paid an undisclosed sum for a disc with details of every claim made by all MPs, as one of the frugal few.

He was labelled a saint for claiming less than half of what he could have under the Additional Cost Committee which allows MPs to have a second home to do their job. Mr Brown said: “I believe that most members of Parliament enter public life so they can serve the public interest. The vast majority of MPs work hard for their constituents.

“But all of us have to have the humility to accept that public confidence has been shaken and the battered reputation of this institution cannot be repaired without fundamental change.”