This article lists the published allegations of expenses abuse made against specific members of the British Parliament in the course of the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal. While the majority of these were first made public by The Daily Telegraph on or after 8 May 2009, a few cases had already come to public attention before that date.
On 18 June 2009 the details of all MP's claims for the period 2004 to 2008 were published on the official Parliament website together with details of voluntary repayments amounting to approximately £500,000.
Items that became public before 8 May 2009
The John Lewis List
The John Lewis List is the name given to a list used by House of Commons Clerks to ascertain whether or not claims by MPs under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) are a realistic representation of the price of items. The list details items that are considered acceptable to be claimed on the ACA, along with the price such items would cost in the John Lewis department store chain.
Prior to 2008 the list was never published in case MPs saw the maximum permitted claim for each item and such a price "became the going rate", a rule House of Commons' resources chief Andrew Walker upheld in February 2008 despite campaigners wanting it released to the Information Tribunal considering the release of MPs' expenses claims. However, a freedom of information request by the Press Association just a month later, in March 2008, saw the list released into the public domain anyway, revealing that MPs were able to claim for, among other things, dishwashers, television sets and tumble dryers.
Derek Conway
Derek Conway, the MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup then under the Conservative whip, was found to have employed his son, Frederick, as a part-time research assistant in his parliamentary office between 2004 and 2007, with an annual salary of £10,000, despite Frederick being a full-time undergraduate student at Newcastle University. This arrangement was revealed by The Sunday Times on 27 May 2007, in an article which prompted a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who in turn referred the matter to the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee.
The committee launched an investigation into the matter as a whole, and reported to the House on 28 January 2008. On the same day, Conway apologised on the floor of the Commons, stating that he accepted the report's criticisms "in full". The report's main finding was that there was "no record" of Frederick ever doing any substantive work for Conway, and that the salary he was paid was too high. The committee ordered Conway to repay £13,000 of the money Frederick had been paid, and recommended that Conway should be suspended from the Commons for ten sitting days. These recommendations were approved, in their entirety, by the House of Commons on 31 January 2008.
At the time of Conway's suspension, the Labour MP John Mann announced that he would be making a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over Conway's employment of his other son, Henry, in a similar capacity to Frederick. Shortly after Conway's suspension and the second allegation being made, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, withdrew the party whip from Conway, effectively leaving him sitting as an Independent MP. Conway subsequently announced that he would not be standing for re-election at the next general election.
In January 2009, a year after the first report, the Committee on Standards and Privileges published a further report, specifically in relation to Conway's employment of his son Henry. The committee found that Henry had been employed immediately prior to Frederick and, similarly, had been studying as a full-time undergraduate at the time of his employment. The committee reported that, like the previous case, there was no "hard evidence" of Henry's employment, but also stated that it would be unfair to conclude that Henry Conway did not undertake sufficient work to fulfil the terms of his contract of employment
The committee ordered Conway to repay £3,758 in over payments to his son, and to also write a letter of apology to the committee's chairman, Sir George Young. Once again, Conway apologised "without qualification" to the Commons.