MP expenses are censored
OVER a million pages of MP expenses were made available to the public yesterday in a bid for transparency, but the government was hit by accusations of a cover up after huge swathes of crucial information was censored.
Items hidden under thick black blocks include addresses of second homes, destinations on train tickets and the names of hotels used on business trips.
The heavy deletion marks make it impossible to determine what many of the claims are, or whether there was an attempt to manipulate Parliament’s rules. It also means that those MP’s who “flipped” their second homes allowance, would have never come to light had that information not been leaked.
But they do show that shadow chancellor George Osborne claimed £47 for two DVDs of one of his own speeches, entitled “Value for Taxpayers’ Money”.
Other revelations from the 600 MPs listed include a claim for more than £1,000 from Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, for shredding services
Meanwhile, Hazel Blears who came under attack for avoiding capital gains tax, before later paying the charge, survived an attempt to oust her at a constituency deselection.