MPs accused of abusing the unreformed expenses system will escape official investigation after the House of Commons authorities destroyed all record of their claims, the Daily Telegraph can reveal.
John Bercow, the Speaker, faces accusations he has presided over a fresh cover-up of MPs’ expenses after tens of thousands of pieces of paperwork relating to claims made before 2010 under the scandal-hit regime were shredded.
Members of the public who have written to Kathryn Hudson, the standards watchdog, to raise concerns about their MP’s claims have been told there can be no investigation due to lack of evidence.
Under the House of Commons “Authorised Records Disposal Practice, which is overseen by Mr Bercow’s committee, records of MPs’ expenses claims are destroyed after three years. The move is necessary to comply with data protection laws, a Commons spokesman said.
Sigh.
When’s that multiple member gallows going to be ready?
Feature, not bug…
Don’t we not have to keep expense receipts for 6 years to comply with tax law?
Do the laws applying to you and I not apply to MP’s?
surely expenses with potential tax implications need to be retained for seven years to comply with HMRC regulations? They do in every other business
Doesn’t the Telegraph have most of the evidence anyway which could be made available to HMRC (were it actually still on the case)? Shredding the claims and the back-up chitties (if there are any) just demonstrates the bad faith (and naivete) of Bercow and those he’s trying to protect.
@Umbongo – good point – if this was done at Bercow’s behest then it’s pretty sure that Labour have more to lose than the Tories when further claims come out. He’s not in the business of doing Cameron any favours, despite technically being a Tory
Umbongo,
Yes:
So Bercow’s corrupt and a fuckwit. He thinks he’s cunningly stopped further investigations, when in fact he’s simply ensured that Parliament cannot refute any charges made by The Telegraph.
And they’ve not even tried to make it look plausible:
And there’s no doubt that a deliberate decision was taken to destroy the records:
Does Bercow not know what brought his predecessor down?
And what about this independent expenses body? They independently decide expenses policy but MPs still get to decide for themselves whether they feel like destroying records? Jesus wept.
it’s like he’s reading “1984” as an instruction manual – ‘Ooops, into the Memory Hole go all those troublesome expense claims…’
“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
I’d imagine any organisation did this in the real world would be looking at perverting the course of justice charges. Presumably Crown Immunity applies?
The legal term is ‘spoliation’. It’s a specific offence in US law (it may well be what gets the corrupt IRS bureaucrats) and it got Barclays in hot water when they were sued by a customer. In this particular instance it might be another illustration of the old adage that it’s not the crime that sinks you, it’s the cover-up.
Crown Immunity pretty much no longer applies. Parliament, however, has separate immunity with regard to its own affairs.