Speaker refuses to name MPs stripped of their travel cards

The Speaker acted to prevent their names being released to the Daily Mail's sister paper, the Evening Standard.

His action will inevitably raise fresh questions over moves by MPs to exempt themselves from freedom of information laws.

The Commons authorities initially refused an FOI request from the Standard for the names of the politicians, arguing that releasing them would have been a breach of "data protection principles" and therefore they did not have to be disclosed under the legislation.

However, they backed down when the Standard challenged this decision, and admitted they were wrong to refuse to reveal the information on personal data protection grounds.

However the Speaker then ruled that the names should be withheld because identifying them "would be likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs".

MPs are generally very reluctant to criticise the Speaker. However, his decision was questioned by several MPs today.

Henry Bellingham, the Conservative spokesman on freedom of information, stressed that full details of MPs' travel expenses are now being published, after the Commons lost a battle to keep them secret.

He added: "Therefore if there are issues within that whole pool of information, like for example an individual MP and his travel card, I think that's a matter of legitimate public interest. If there are MPs who have got a problem over how they have been using their card, I think that is something they have got to explain.

"If this is just a bureaucratic hiccup, then why not explain it and then at least the public's mind can be put at rest."

Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall, said: "MPs should not be exempt from any aspect of freedom of information relating to public money."

Another senior backbencher said: "It's quite clear that this information should be released. The Speaker may think he is helping Parliament but he is actually damaging it."

MPs are given a credit cardstyle travel card which allows them to pay for their journeys and they have to sign off a form naming who has been on the trips and when.

Some MPs have criticised the system as bureaucratic because the dates of journeys on the form are when tickets are purchased rather than the day of travel so they say it can be difficult to remember exact trips.

One source said the travel cards had been withdrawn from at least some of the three MPs because the forms had not been returned after two months, with one claiming not to have received them, or had been completed incorrectly.

Labour MP David Winnick said the admission that the initial decision not to identify the three MPs was wrong would add to the controversy over the bid to restrict the FOI laws' application to Parliament.

While not commenting on the Speaker's ruling, he added: "The more efforts are made to conceal information, the suspicion will be, in my view often unjustified, that MPs are hiding matters."

MPs' travel allowances came under scrutiny in November 2004 when David Blunkett, the then Home Secretary, admitted he had wrongly given a rail warrant, intended for MPs' spouses, to his married lover Kimberly Quinn. He repaid the £180 cost of the train ticket to Doncaster.

Critics of the move largely to exempt MPs from FOI laws argue that even if a new clause is introduced to guarantee the publication of MPs' expenses and allowances, other use of public money by politicians could still be kept secret.

The Speaker's office could not be contacted for comment.