Filkin accuses MPs of 'bullying' to beat sleaze inquiries

Elizabeth Filkin, the former sleaze watchdog, has called for MPs' expenses to be investigated to prevent them misusing "substantial sums of public money".

Mrs Filkin, in her frankest account yet of her time as parliamentary commissioner for standards, said that powers to investigate MPs' behaviour needed "buttressing", accusing them of "bullying and backstabbing" during her investigations into their conduct.

She called for new powers to investigate claims that MPs behave with a "lack of courtesy and consideration" towards their constituents.

She said that MPs' expenses, which total at least £74,000 a year on top of their salaries for staff and office costs, are not subject to any scrutiny to ensure they are spent honestly and properly. "By any standards these usually involve substantial sums of public money. There is currently no rigorous audit of these claims, although guidance has been improved following investigations into misuse," she said.

Mrs Filkin was highly critical of some MPs who sit on the committee, which has the power to punish MPs she investigated. She said that some were not supportive and were susceptible to promises of promotion by party bosses in return for letting colleagues off the hook.

Mrs Filkin said MPs who did not have a solid "ethical base" and could not resist pressure should be banned from sitting on the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee, which investigates alleged misconduct by MPs and ministers.

She said that some did not bother to read her reports or were not of the right "bent" to grasp the detail of some complicated complaints. Mrs Filkin implied that she was sometimes let down by committee members who refused to summon witnesses or call for accounts that would help her with an inquiry into misconduct by an MP.

"There were individual members who I did not feel were as supportive as they might have been," she said. "Patronage and blind loyalty can make a system vulnerable to influence, interference or corruption. The parties have considerable influence over the conduct of MPs."

She said some MPs she investigated adopted "tactics of bullying and backstabbing" and "caused mayhem".

In a thinly veiled reference to Keith Vaz, the former Europe minister who was suspended from the House of Commons for failing to co- operate with an inquiry, she said some inquiries were "obstructed, or unnecessarily protracted and therefore costly".

She suggested that some MPs openly lied to her.

"There were situations in which there was a conflict between what I thought the truth was and what the member thought," she said.

Mrs Filkin said she felt that her relations with Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, were good, and was "surprised" when he told her he was advertising her job to other candidates.