Denis MacShane has resigned as a Labour MP, after a parliamentary enquiry found that his conduct was the “gravest case” of wrongdoing ever to have been investigated.
Labour MP Denis MacShane Photo: PA
By Holly Watt and Claire Newell
The MP for Rotherham was due to be suspended from his role for a year after an enquiry found that he had falsified invoices to claim thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded expenses.
However, he has now decided to step down as an MP, triggering a by-election.
"I have decided for the sake of my wonderful constituency of Rotherham and my beloved Labour Party to resign as an MP by applying for the Chiltern Hundreds or as guided by the House authorities," said Mr MacShane.
"I love the House of Commons and I hope by resigning I can serve by showing that MPs must take responsibility for their mistakes and accept the consequences of being in breach of the House rules.”
The police are also under pressure to reopen their investigation, after the report by the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges concluded that Mr MacShane was “writing his own cheque” from taxpayer funds.
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In the report, the standards commissioner John Lyon said the investigation was suspended for almost two years because of the police enquiry.
However, although Mr Lyon reported Mr MacShane to the police in October 2010, he noted in his report that his evidence was not requested by the police, raising serious questions about the police investigation.
The enquiry was dropped after the Crown Prosecution Service concluded that the file passed to them by the police in December 2011 contained insufficient evidence to try Mr MacShane.
The police have launched, but subsequently dropped, several enquiries into MPs following the expenses scandal.
Between 2004 and 2008, Mr MacShane claimed up to £950 for research and translation costs to pay the European Policy Institute (EPI). The total amount claimed was £12,900, with nineteen fasified receipts.
However, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon’s report found that Mr Macshane himself controlled the EPI’s bank account.
“The EPI was a loose network with no formal structure. The names at the bottom of the letterhead were friends and associates of Mr MacShane dating from the early 1990s when he was working in Geneva and the EPI had come into existence,” wrote Mr Lyon.
The Committee on Standards and Privileges announced the suspension over three years after Mr MacShane was reported to the watchdog over his expenses. The Daily Telegraph exposed the expenses scandal in 2009.
The investigation was delayed because of a police enquiry that was only resolved last July. It was not clear why the police enquiry was terminated without charges.
The investigation began after it emerged that Mr MacShane had claimed nearly £20,000 a year in expenses for an office based in the garage of his South Yorkshire home.
The former Minister claimed £125,000 in seven years to cover the costs of running his official constituency base from the garage of his semi-detached home in Rotherham.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/9651978/MPs-expenses-scandal-Denis-MacShane-resigns.html
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