Met launches MPs’ expenses investigation
By Ian Dunt
The Metropolitan police has launched an investigation into MPs’ alleged misuse of expenses.
A joint Metropolitan police and crown prosecution service assessment panel decided to undertake the investigation into “a small number of MPs and peers” this afternoon.
The investigation will be conducted by officers from the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Command, overseen by temporary assistant commissioner Janet Williams.
The police have said they will not discuss the names or political allegiances of those being investigated.
A previous deliberation by the panel concluded no prosecution could take place, because it would require proof the MP in question lied to the Fees Office.
The probe comes on the day it was revealed MPs have paid back a total of £500,000 over the course of the scandal, and a day after parliament published the full list of MPs expenses.
The parliamentary list turned into a spectacular own goal after it transpired so much of the information had been redacted that most of the serious abuses would have been impossible to discover.
