Expenses Fraud was Always a Crime

25 June 2009

Sir, Even when attempting to clean up after the expenses scandal, this Government cannot resist unnecessary legislation when pursuing an eye-catching headline and “being seen to do something” (“MPs who fiddle expenses now face jail,” June 24).

Clause 9(1)(b) of the Parliamentary Standards Bill proposes a brand new offence of knowingly providing false or misleading information to the new parliamentary authority for the purposes of a claim for allowances. (Making a false claim is not, without more than that, a proposed offence).

Such misconduct has since time immemorial been catered for by s.15 or 15A of the Theft Act, 1968 (dishonestly obtaining property by deception) and their predecessors, as Mr Brown, or at least his advisers, were surely aware. Equally, false accounting under s.17 of the same Act would clearly meet the case.

One advantage to the fiddling MP of being charged with the new offence is that the proposed maximum sentence is only 12 months. Joe Public, charged under the Theft Act, faces a maximum of ten years.

David Farrer, qc