A LARGE section of David Cameron’s top team was dragged into the Commons expenses row last night.
As the furore shifted across the political divide, the latest tranche of revelations from a national newspaper indicated that senior Tories had engaged in the tactic of “flipping” property designations to claim more allowances.
Among them was shadow schools secretary Michael Gove, from Aberdeen – one of Mr Cameron’s closest allies – who spent £7,000 over five months on a London property, before buying a house in Surrey and claiming thousand of pounds more on that.
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley apparently renovated a Tudor thatched cottage on the taxpayers’ tab shortly before selling it, and shadow Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan was forced to apologise last night after admitting she had put through dogfood on expenses.
Meanwhile, shadow Leader of the House Alan Duncan was facing questions for reportedly running up a £4,000 bill on gardening, before being warned by officials that the spending “could be considered excessive”.
Mr Cameron reacted swiftly by issuing an apology for his party’s involvement with Westminster’s discredited allowances regime.
But there will be relief at Conservative Central Office that he and the Tories’ other two top figures, shadow foreign secretary William Hague and shadow chancellor George Osborne, seem to have escaped relatively unscathed.
Mr Cameron said it was going to be “another bad day for parliament and frankly another bad day for the Conservative Party”.
The latest revelations emerged as the Commons authorities mounted a desperate rearguard action to restore public confidence in the expenses system. A new independent audit unit – costing £600,000 a year to run – will take over scrutiny of claims.
The ruling Commons Commission is also due to discuss whether it can rush through publication of more than 1million edited claims receipts, in a bid to stop the newspaper’s “drip, drip” release of a leaked – and unedited – version.
Mr Gove strongly denied “flipping” – a practice that had been condemned by his frontbench colleague Liam Fox – insisting his principal home had been in Surrey since before his election as MP for Surrey Heath in May 2005.
Mr Duncan said in a statement: “Everything I have claimed has been legitimate and approved by the fees office.”
Referring to the £3,194 claim, he went on: “It was I who raised the issue with the Fees Office and although it was a legitimate claim, we agreed that it might be seen as too large a single item and therefore I did not claim it.”
He also insisted that he had always had a mortgage on the Rutland property, but for technical reasons it had been lodged against his London property until 2004.
Meanwhile, Mr Lansley denied he had “flipped” designations to claim more expenses.
“Until late 2005, my main family home was in London as that is where I spent the majority of my time,” he said.
“In late 2005 my daughter started at nursery school in Cambridgeshire and from that point onwards my constituency home became my main residence.”
Ms Gillan said: “I mistakenly submitted a food bill which contained items for which I did not intend to claim back. I am sorry for this and will immediately repay the amount.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown will try today to shift the agenda away from expenses by delivering a key speech on health policy at a nursing conference in Harrogate.
Mr Cameron is due to appear at the same event.