MPs' expenses go online in bid to restore trust

Internet will help transparency

MPs expenses will go online

Full details of MPs’ expenses are to be published on the internet every three months in a bid to calm public outrage at the grossly excessive claims of some.

The move is part of an emergency crackdown announced by outgoing Commons Speaker Michael Martin, who yesterday caved in to demands for him to resign.

The move copies the process adopted by the Scottish Parliament a few years ago following an expenses scandal in Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police announced it will not mount an investigation to discover who leaked details of MPs’ expenses on a hard drive stolen from the Commons Fees Office, which ended up in the possession of The Daily Telegraph.

The Commons authorities had requested an inquiry and Martin railed, during an earlier series of Commons exchanges, against allowing a member of the Commons staff whom he suspected of responsibility for the breach remaining in his job.