Gordon Brown: MPs could be jailed over expenses

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The Prime Minister said he wanted the new Parliamentary Standards Authority Bill on the statute book by the time MPs break for the summer recess next month.

The Bill, which was unveiled by Commons leader Harriet Harman this afternoon, will create an independent watchdog to police MPs' expenses.

But Mr Brown pre-empted Ms Harman's Parliamentary statement by announcing that the new rules would be backed up by criminal sanctions.

He told BBC Radio 4's The World At One: "There are indeed criminal offences in this Bill so that if an MP misleads deliberately or if an MP does something like ... without reasonable excuse, fails to register a relevant interest, that is a criminal offence and that would then be investigated by the police."

The new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority will have the power to fine, suspend or expel errant MPs from the Commons. Its commissioners will select the Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigations and will have a fully professional staff.

Mr Brown said the new Code of Conduct for Financial Standards would also include clear guidelines to trigger the expulsion of MPs, as well as their suspension from the Commons and payback of any misclaimed expenses.

He said the new watchdog and reformed system were "our response to what I understand to be the public anger and dismay and the apology that we need to make to the nation".

Mr Brown said the Government was acting now — with the support of the Opposition — to get rid of the old system of self-regulation by MPs because past attempts by the Commons to reform itself had failed.

He said: "The mistake of the past was simply to leave everything to the House of Commons to do it on an all-party agreement basis so that you got to lowest common denominator."

He said if the new system did not prove to be sufficient, the Government was prepared to bring in further measures. "We are determined to do everything in our power to clean this up and I am not going to rest until we have got this legislation through," he said.