An admission that MPs in the north and north-east of Scotland have spent less than their predecessors sparked a political row last night.
The SNP had been accused of “milking the system” by their opponents after figures published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority apparently showed Westminster nationalists had spent significantly more on expenses than their predecessors.
However, it has now emerged that, due to an error in transferring data to its new website, IPSA’s figures for 2014-15 had not been updated, which led to the inaccurate comparisons.
The updated figures have revealed that nationalist MPs actually spent more than £1million less than previous members on expenses, including travel costs.
Now, the SNP is calling for Scottish Labour, who had accused the party of “living the high life”, to retract their claims and publicly apologise.
Gordon MP Alex Salmond was among those who was accused of spending more than his predecessor, Lord Bruce of Bennachie.
But Mr Salmond said it had been a “huge embarrassment” for Labour.
He added: “We now have official confirmation from IPSA that SNP MPs do indeed cost less than their Labour and Lib Dem predecessors – over £1million less.
“Parliamentary records are also clear that SNP MPs are working much harder too – with some MPs making more contributions in their first year than their predecessors did in the entire five years of the last parliament.
“This has been a huge embarrassment for the Labour Party in particular, who seized on bogus figures to launch an underhand attack on the SNP, only for it to spectacularly backfire now we know for certain that SNP MPs cost less and do a better job.
“Labour should now do the decent thing and apologise.”
IPSA has confirmed there was an error in updating expenses data for the previous year on the new website.
A spokesman said: “At the moment, the new website has accurate figures for 2015-15, but some of the figures for the previous years have not been fully updated.
“It meant that, last week, when comparisons were made between the years, the SNP MPs appeared to have higher business costs then their predecessors.”
