The Fraud Squad lick their lips:

A former Labour minister was facing a fraud probe last night after taking £16,000 of taxpayers’ money for a mortgage that did not exist.

Elliot Morley claimed £800 a month for a home in his Scunthorpe constituency, even though the mortgage had already been paid off.

Yesterday he apologised and insisted he had repaid money after realising his ‘mistake’. It was reported that the whole amount had been returned.

But lawyers warned that the former agriculture minister could find himself embroiled in a police investigation. They said his claims could constitute a criminal offence under the 2006 Fraud Act and the 1968 Theft Act.

Well, you heard that fraud angle here first.

MPs like other people are entitled to claim expenses "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" incurred on the business activity concerned, viz representing their constituents. Thus:

What can I claim?

Only those costs wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred to enable you to stay overnight away from your only or main UK residence, either in London or in the constituency.

The phrase "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" comes from the UK‘s bulging UK tax law provisions on expenses, and traditionally is narrowly interpreted. The famous case of Mallalieu v Drummond [1983] asked whether the formal clothing worn by barristers was tax deductible. No, said the House of Lords.

See the dastardly Lord Brightman sweeping away a woman’s right to choose her own professional wardrobe and offset the cost thereof against tax:

Lord Brightman explained why he could not follow the narrow approach of the lower courts, which had confined consideration to the barrister’s stated conscious purpose in acquiring the disputed clothing.
The judge accepted that the taxpayer thought only of the requirements of her profession when she first bought (as a capital expense) her wardrobe of subdued clothing. The judge also considered that as and when she replaced items or sent them to the launderers or the cleaners she would, if asked, have repeated that she was maintaining her wardrobe because of those requirements. It is the natural way that anyone incurring such expenditure would think and speak.
But she needed clothes to travel to work and clothes to wear at work, and he thought it inescapable that one object, though not a conscious motive, was the provision of the clothing that she needed as a human being.
Lord Brightman rejected the notion that the object of a taxpayer is inevitably limited to the particular conscious motive in mind at the moment of expenditure. Of course the motive of which the taxpayer is conscious is of a vital significance, but it is not inevitably the only object which the Commissioners are entitled to find to exist.

So there.

In our MPs’ case, you can see the way their ingenious minds worked:

"The rules properly and fairly allow me to claim the costs of owning or renting a second property to allow me to do my Parliamentary duties. Therefore – within reason of course – anything I spend on that second home will have been spent in pursuit of those duties – I would not be incurring any such costs were it not for being an MP!
So let’s see… yes, that tiresome moat round my second home to keep out all my constituents is blocked with weeds. The whole place needs a coat of paint – and that guest bathroom would be lifted with a sparkly loo seat, just like the one John bought. Those silk cushions from Harrods Keith bought would look nice – maybe a couple of dozen or so? And the fridge is empty – I’d better nip round to F&Ms to stock up…"

And so on to perdition.

It is in fact not easy to draw clear lines. Iain Dale and others have lambasted one MP who claimed back the costs of a wreath laid at a Remembrance Day event. But what if he was expected as an MP to attend several such events and lay wreaths? Should he have to pay for them all from his own pocket, plus all his travel costs to get there?

In Warsaw the Embassy’s budget paid for the wreaths laid by me and others at the annual Remembrance Day event, just as it paid for the reception at my Residence afterwards for senior guests including in 2006 the mother of President Kaczynski, a veteran of WW2. We all contributed privately to the Poppy appeal. Improper abuse of public representational funds? 

That said, the people best placed to judge the propriety of all these MPs’ claims are a jury.

It is not enough for an MP solemnly to intone that ‘it was all within the rules’. That assertion has to be credible and consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the rules and their spirit, as well as with common sense honesty.

As an old saw of English law puts it:

The state of a man’s mind would be as much a fact as the state of his indigestion

The strenuous efforts made by so many MPs and led by the current Speaker to stop the public looking at all this strongly suggest that they were indeed uneasy or even furtive about their expenses.

So let the fraud prosecutions loose! Let MPs stand in the dock and be compelled to explain to a razor-sharp barrister denied the chance to claim against expenses her/his elegant suit why what was done was fair and reasonable – and honourable.

And if the state will not take on this vital task, let groups of furious taxpayers mobilise to launch private prosecutions against the most egregious examples of abuse of their money.

That would be most instructive.

And, dare one say, democratic?