MPs' expenses bill cut to £3.1m under new rules
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority blames 'unprecedented' demand as website hosting database of MPs' claims appears to crash within hour of going live
Embarrassingly, the website set up to host the database of MPs' expenses claims appeared to have crashed within an hour of going live for the first time at 10am.
The expenses watchdog, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) blamed "unprecedented" demand.An Ipsa spokeswoman said the watchdog had ensured there was "huge bandwidth" to allow all those wishing to check their MPs' claims.
The teething problems come ahead of MPs debating a backbench motion in the Commons condemning the "unnecessarily high costs and inadequacies" of the new system and calling for the introduction of a "simpler" alternative.
Today's publication shows David Cameron claimed £2,408.75 for research services, Bob Russell claimed £82.13 for toilet paper for his constituency office and the Labour MP Gloria De Piero, an ex-GMTV presenter, claimed £1 for some cleaning gloves from Netto.
But the bill for MPs to run constituency and Westminster offices, and for many to run second homes, appears to have shrunk significantly compared with the previous system.
The £3.1m cost for the first four months, which includes the summer break and excludes the biggest bill covering staff salaries, compares with a £96m bill for the whole of last year. The total claimed for accommodation was £869,812.
Last night the head of Ipsa, Sir Ian Kennedy, claimed that MPs were no longer routinely making spurious claims, as had been the case under the previous system. "It's our assessment that MPs are being thoughtful and careful in the use of the system," he said.
The highest claimer was Keith Simpson, the Conservative MP for mid-Norfolk, who was reimbursed £20,752, followed by Craig Whittaker, the Tory MP for Calder Valley (£18,297.71) and Andrew Bingham, the Conservative MP for High Peak in Derbyshire (£17,348.24).
Other claims include:
• David Cameron claimed £2,581 – the bulk of which to cover professional services (£2,408. 75) in July for his Witney constituency office. Other claims appear to be to furnish his constituency office with portfolio files (£14.63) pens (11.97), filing boxes and memo pads (£16.65) and a further stationary claim for £11.17, as well as £94.00 for House of Commons headed letter paper.
• The chancellor, George Osborne, claimed £582.62. His biggest single item of expenditure was £145.70 on headed paper followed by a £129 train journey from London to Macclesfield to visit his Tatton constituency. He spent £96.08 on a printer cartridge and £21 hiring a hall for a constituency surgery meeting. Osborne also spent about £25 on local newspapers.
• Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, claimed £4.905.73. That included payments of £1,742.60 and £1,359.61 on renting an office in his Inverness, Badenock and Strathspey constituency. He made claims of £354.30 and £92.80 for parking at Inverness airport and £116.09 for a flight between Gatwick and Inverness. Advertising for his constituency surgeries accounted for a further seven claims, the biggest being £85.78. He paid mobile telephone bills of £102.50, £109.22 and £65.87, and made a £234.71 "final payment" on a shared Risograph photocopier.
• David Laws, who stepped down as chief secretary to the Treasury, after less than a month over his expenses, ranked in the lowest quartile of MPs in terms of claims, at just £1,827. This included a number of car trips from his constituency office to Westminster, each claimed for £57.
• Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, claimed £2,066, which covered three months' rent for his Doncaster constituency home, as well as office maintenance (£295.84), and an office cleaning bill in July (£19.09), and £82.25 to have a photocopier toner installed.
Collectively, MPs spent £2,324.99 on purchasing shredders for their offices, ranging from £50 paid by the Labour MP Rachel Reeves and £292.58 paid by the Conservative Neil Carmichael.
Amid the claims for hospitality was the £82 for Russell's toilet paper, while Hugh Bayley, Labour MP for York Central, spent £60 on a staff away day. The Lib Dem transport minister Norman Baker claimed 54p for a bag of sugar.
Today's Commons motion on the new expenses system has been tabled by Adam Afriyie, a millionaire Tory who has not claimed any expenses since May.
He is backed by Graham Brady, the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 committee, Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the parliamentary Labour party, and Lorely Burt, the chairman of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party, underlining the strength of feeling across Westminster.
Lloyd claimed £7,112.90 between May and August, including four charges for rental accommodation at £1,083 a month. Other claims included for car and rail travel, photocopier hire, telephone bills and £12.75 for dinner at the Commons when it sat late on 10 June.
Burt claimed £1,176.55, which included about £45 for each of 18 car journeys between London and her Solihull constituency in the West Midlands. She also claimed for an £82 train fare, stationery and a printer purchase.
Brady claimed £558.47, covering stationery, mobile phone bills, £118.96 on anti-viral software for a computer and £40 for car parking.
Ipsa published the searchable database of MPs but for the first four months it does not include the rejected items, which have instead been published after a freedom of information request. That showed more than 1,000 refused items, which Kennedy put down to "teething problems" in the system.
