Is this the chap who will be responsble for ensuring that Incapacity Benefit claimant don't fiddle the taxpayer? Just to put it into perspective - Mr Purnell's annual second home allowance would fund a person's IB for five years.

Chuck W., Ipswich, Suffolk

Oh, that's normal in the Czech Republic. Some comments from the newspapers, but nothing ever changes. Much the same as here.

Pavel, Canterbury, Originally from the Czech Republic

The criminal offence of 'dishonestly obtaining by deception' comes to mind

M Shipway, Gravesend, England

If you can not do this as an employee in a private company, why should you be able to do this as an MP? Do the rules suddenly not exist?

Chantel, Wales,

Why all the surprise? This kind of thing is typical of New Labour politicians.

RB, Aberdeen,

"The Ways and Means Committee" stands for "Ways of avoiding taxation" amd " Means of getting Rich" for Britains MPs. The parliamentary system needs a major overhaul.

In South America the word corruption is used to describe the misuse of public monies. In Britain it ishould be named "The Ways and Means".

Jim Wills, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I have to say that Pete from Edinburgh has made an excellent suggestion with regards to MP's having access to a central pool of "hotel" rooms.

This really would pull the rug from under the feet of those who have thier greedy little snouts so deep into the trough that they cannot hear the sound of disquiet coming from the voting population!

Mike, Harrow,

The Revenue require Taxpayers to keep records for SIX years. Why should the body which passed the legislation which enshrines this issue not keep to the same timespan.

All MPs, with the honourable exception of Norman Baker, are decidedly dodgy. Sack the lot of them.

Jack Gamon, Sussex,, England

Why not set up a MPs dormitory. Bit like a student hall of residence. Then any one of them who needs a room gets one supplied. Those who live local will just go home. Others will then have a place to stay. Then there wil be no need for second home allowance, expenses on gardening, double relisef for married MPS jealousy on capital gains or ambiguity about which home is the principal residence etc.

I suspect none of us would mind if these were quite decent rooms too ( OK, decent not opulent) so don't think student hall, think serviced flats.

Anything to make it open and above board and stop the fiddling and lying

Pete, Edinburgh,

Oh dear.....another 'mistake'. Yeh right.

judy, Liverpool, England

I agree. This doesn't look at all good. I believe that the parliamentary definition of what constitutes a "second-home" should be expanded to to include the words "and not primary residence as defined by HMRC." This also begs the question, where does he stay in London since he disposed of his flat? I can't imagine that he commutes from Manchester to London every week day. According to Wikipedia he was reported as being the most expensive MP in Greater Manchester, with expenses in 2004 of more than £120,000.

Let's tidy-up the whole expenses system for MPs and remove any ambiguities in the wording of the rules that facilitate such abuse.

Alex, Guildford, UK

This could be simply sorted by ensuring that publicly funded property becomes public property once the individual is no longer an MP. Or ensuring that MPs rent rather than purchase.

What is astonishing is that behaviour that would get a public/private employee fired is perfectly "acceptable" for an MP.

Mark, Derby,

Are the tax rules designed to incoporate loopholes? Or to create jobs for lawyers who write them and accountants who translate them? There is no need for such a complicated system which was obviously designed to confuse. Buy to let is another mindbender. It is obvious that the way politicians are allocated housing benefit needs laid bare and simplified. State owned apartments and flats would be be the obvious. Like no 10 and 11 I suppose. The olympic fiasco could have paid for that twice over.

kenny Livitt, hove,

What have I read?

"parliamentary authorities had destroyed the records because they were so old"

He is talking about 2001 and 2002. Surely this is a ridiculously short time to hold records, which might, amongst other have tax or fraud information? So the records of all the expense shenanigans from more than five years ago have been carefully destroyed?

Come on "The Times", surely there must be a report in this???

Bob Travels, Stevenage,

This is stirring the pot by the Times and mean and mispirited of them. Seperating the facts from the Spin it seems the home was once his primary residence, he became an MP so got a consituency home - he claimed expenses as MPs are allowed for having to run two households. His London home would have been exempt from CGT as it HAD been his main residence in the previous years.

Is it any wonder nobody decent wants to go into politics any more when even reasonable behaviour is exposed to such cynicism and point scoring by the media?

G Mac, Birmingham, UK

Purnell's windfall/clever legal wheeze has netted him about four years' worth of disability benefit at one fell swoop. "Do as I say, not as I do..." A Labour government is emphatically NOT there to further enrich the wealthy and further impoverish the economically weak. And such a blatant example of double standards will further erode trust in a Labour government.

Julia Iskandar, London, England

Loathe though I am to jump to the defence of any Labour politician, this is highly disingenuous on the part of the journalist and Norman Baker. The legislation and HMRC's highly publicised guidance on it are absolutely crystal clear: to claim principal private residence relief on the sale of a property you need only have occupied it at some point in time as your main residence (which Mr Purnell had). This was the express intention of Parliament in passing section 222 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. This is not a "tax loophole", HMRC and the government expressly say you can do this. This boils down to the usual envy on the part of those who are too lazy, too mean or too stupid to either pay for basic tax advice or bother going looking for it on HMRC's website. This is not some expensive, sophisticated tax scheme. It is designed so that a taxpayer is not penalised for not being able to sell one home before purchasing another within 3 years.

Mark, Sevevenoaks, Kent

It used to be that to be an MP you had to be one of the landed gentry.
Now it appears that when you become an MP you get to become landed gentry at the taxpayers expense.
How times move forward...

Roger Evans, Peterborough,

The issue we need to debate is whether if MPs do fiddle expenses or loopholes, whether they are still fit for office or whether we need a jury of say 30 or so members of the public to decide if they shoud be sacked by the jury.

This is about accountability to the people, a principle at the heart of our system.

Secondly, the other point we need to have a debate is whether MP's fat pay should also be decided upon by this jury.

F Cockburn , London, UK

mr Boulger, you ignore the fact that he must have told HMR&C the flat WAS his PPR while telling Parliament it wasnt his main house. If he had never told HMR&C this he would not have qualified for the 3 year rule as a PPR and he would have paid CGT. Therefore he has avoided tax by telling 2 different tales, while taking tens of thousands of pounds from us all in the meantime to subsidise his profits.

Gives him great moral authority to sort out the benefit system - do as I say and dont abuse things and not as I do, as usual from politicians.

david, leeds, yorkshire

He at least doesn't appear to have evaded any capital gains tax (CGT). The last 3 years of ownership of any property which has been the taxpayer's principle private residence are treated for tax purposes as if the property was still the owner's principle private residence, even if it was not. This was introduced to give people who wanted to move plenty of time to sell their property at times when the market was difficult without having some of any capital gain subject to CGT.

As James Purnell bought his Manchester home in June 2002 and sold the Bloombury flat in October 2004 there would consequently be no CGT liability. Many people in this situation plan to sell their property within 3 years to avoid CGT and that may well have been a factor influencing the timing of Mr Purnell's sale.

Ray Boulger, Redhill, England

Why have you ommitted to mention that a main residence does not become subject to CGT for 3 years after it has ceased being the main residence?

Jo, Kendal,