Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent
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MPs will be banned from buying furniture, installing new kitchens or buying televisions on expenses but will be given a £4,200 a year subsistence allowance which can be claimed without receipts.
MPs on the Speaker’s committee have outlined a series of reforms to the system of MPs' expenses, which were drawn up in the wake of the Derek Conway scandal, and which they claimed marked the “end of the gentlemen’s club” in Parliament.
Under the favoured option of the committee, the amount of money to reimburse MPs with constituencies out of London will remain broadly the same, with a £19,600 maximum budget for accommodation and £30 a day for each of the 140 sitting days for subsistence. This will leave the overall total at £23,800.
Mortgage interest, utility bills, repairs, insurance, council tax and cleaning can still be claimed as part of the £19,600 so long as receipts are submitted. However redecoration - capital improvement, using the definition provided by the Inland Revenue - and household goods on the so-called John Lewis list will no longer be available.
The change is likely to mean little change for MPs like David Cameron who claimed all of their second home allowance under the present system as mortgage interest.
But the hardest hit will be long serving MPs who no longer have mortgages, who will no longer be able to spend the allowance on renovations to improve the value of their flat. Remortgaging property to increase its value has been forbidden since 2003.
Following the ruling by the Information Tribunal and High Court, all of the receipts submitted to Parliament will be available for the the public to see, with releases taking place every three months.
Parliament is spending close to a million pounds scanning every receipt submitted by MPs as part of their second home allowance over the summer.
The Members Estimate Committee has recommended tougher independent audits, so that the National Audit Office and an independent audit team will examine claims relating to at least 20 per cent of MPs each year.
“We recommend that the House extends the scope of the audit engagement so that it is the same for other public bodies,” the report said.
MPs will vote on the proposals on on July 3. The committee ruled out suggestions, floated during the review, of merging overnight expenses with salary, nor does it recommend a general per diem rate.
There will also be significant changes for London MPs. The report proposes reducing by half allowances for outer London MPs - following anger that they can claim for ACA despite often living within commuting distance of Westminster. The report said there was a “perverse incentive” for these members to run a second home because they did not receive money otherwise.
The committee said: “We recognise that habitual late finishes on Monday and Tuesday nights, combined with early starts the next morning, continue to justify accommodation expenses being covered for two nights a week, but that the same case cannot be made in respect of Wednesday or Thursday nights.
“So we see a case for a phased introduction of a ’half-rate’ accommodation allowance for MPs in (outer London), allowing them to take hotel rooms on Monday and Tuesday nights, or to retain modest or shared flats.”
Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat MP who is a spokesman for the Members’ Estimate Committee, said MPs would probably be “surprised” by the extra restrictions, he predicted.
But he added that although the maximum amount had been reduced only slightly, he would expect the average claim by MPs to fall.
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