McLeish repays £38,500 'officegate' expenses

Labour faced embarrassment at the start of its first rural conference yesterday over its failure to meet targets on the environment and improvements to the countryside.

Mr McLeish claimed the money for the rental of his constituency headquarters in Fife while he was still a sitting MP at Westminster. Butwhile claiming the rental allowance, Mr McLeish sub-let part of his offices to up to six outside organisations.

The resulting political row, dubbed "officegate" by opposition MSPs, resulted in Mr McLeish being forced to resign as First Minister even though he maintained it had been a "muddle not a fiddle". He continued to assert that all the rental income had been spent on running his Glenrothes office and not for personal gain.

A spokesman at Westminster's Fees Office confirmed yesterday that Mr McLeish had repaid "the full liability he had accrued", of about £38,500. "As far as we are concerned the matter is now closed," he said.

But Mr McLeish, who remains a backbench MSP, has not heard the last of "officegate" as he is being investigated by Fife Police who were called in to examine any evidence of fraud. And in a separate move, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP Tommy Sheridan has called for Mr McLeish to either give up his pension of £34,000 a year or stand down as an MSP.