The great expenses cover-up: Now MPs quietly change the FOI act to keep details secret

This autumn, Commons authorities will for the first time release details of up to two million receipts submitted by MPs, covering claims for home improvements, furnishings and office costs.

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that MPs have insisted on having the information censored – and in such a way that could save them from potential embarrassment.

Special order: Harriet Harman pushed the new rules through

Under the changes, the location of MPs’ taxpayer-funded second homes will be cut out while full travel details – including potentially extravagant taxi journeys – will also be exempt.

The decision to edit the claims was nodded through the Commons without a vote just before MPs broke up for the summer and came after women MPs apparently broke down in tears at the prospect of their personal details being released.

The change meant amending the Government’s flagship freedom of information legislation.

It comes ahead of an extraordinary expenses ‘big bang’ later this year, when between 1.3million and 2million receipts submitted by MPs in four-and-a-quarter years will be published on the same day.

The decision to publish the information – which could now be delayed because of the sheer bulk of work to process the receipts – has effectively been forced on a reluctant Commons Speaker Michael Martin by campaigners for open government.

However, it left many MPs nervous about what would be revealed.

Following the law change, officials overseeing a huge scanning operation of the receipts – costing £1million and being carried out under secure conditions at an undisclosed location in London – have been instructed to delete every reference to addresses, even where an MP has no objection to them being published.

As well as blacking out details of MPs’ bank accounts and phone numbers, staff are removing references to anyone supplying goods or services to the deleted locations for fear that would provide a clue as to the addresses.

Full details of ‘regular’ journeys – such as taxis to the same destinations – will also not be provided although broader details of how much each MP spends on different modes of travel will be released.

MPs have also secured the right to see the expenses being published a month before the release date to ‘check’ the details are accurate – leading to fears they will use the period to remove key information.

Campaigners say the blanket block on revealing MPs’ addresses will spare them proper scrutiny of second-home allowances, now worth up to £24,000 a year to each MP.

Scam exposed: Tory couple Sir Nicholas and Lady Ann Winterton were caught claiming housing allowance for the home they already owned outright

They argue that MPs are fearful of far more scams being exposed, such as the fact that Tory MP couple Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton were claiming housing allowances for a home they already owned outright.

Campaigners also say that blanking out details of who does work on an MP’s home or supplies services to it would obviously prevent questions as to whether MPs were getting value for money from who they used.

They also say that not detailing specific journeys made by MPs – which last year cost the taxpayer about £5million – will stop people challenging whether particular trips are valid.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign group, said security issues were being used by MPs as an excuse for a cover-up.

‘A blanket ban on all MPs’ home details is completely over the top,’ he said. ‘This can only prevent proper investigation into and scrutiny by the public.’

He also demanded to know why Westminster was refusing to publish full details of each MP’s taxpayer-funded journeys on ‘security’ grounds while the Scottish Parliament regularly releases that information and while even some MPs privately admit travel claims could contain some of the biggest ‘fiddles’.

A series of high-profile expenses scandals at Westminster, including the Wintertons’ housing claims, and freedom of information requests has effectively forced the Speaker to agree to release all expenses receipts.

The first batch – relating to 14 high-profile current and former MPs and comprising 450 separate documents – was published in May and revealed how Gordon Brown claimed £15 for lightbulbs.

Officials are now painstakingly preparing the release of detailed claims for all 646 MPs. One Labour MP said: ‘They thought there were 1.3million receipts but I’ve heard it could be as many as two million to process.’

The special Parliamentary Order, which was pushed through by Commons leader Harriet Harman, allows the Commons and Lords to refuse FoI requests for:

•  Information relating to any residential address of MPs and peers.

•  The identity of any person delivering goods or services to those addresses.

• Any details of security work on MPs’ homes.

• Any details of taxpayer-funded journey that is ‘regular in nature’ and might allow people to build up a ‘profile’ of MPs’ travel arrangements.

Ms Harman claimed that MPs, their families and even their neighbours could be at risk from ‘a fixated individual’ or terrorists if the address details became public knowledge.

‘We must be able to say what we believe to be true about controversial issues without feeling that to do so would put us or our families at risk,’ she said.

Tory MP Julian Lewis, who has campaigned to keep MPs’ addresses private, claimed some women MPs at a meeting with Information Commissioner Richard Thomas earlier this year had been ‘in tears’ at the prospect of their addresses being released.

The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year husband-and-wife Labour MPs Alan and Ann Keen were so fearful of a stalker that they had urged the Speaker to fight release of MPs’ addresses.

Some MPs from all the three main parties were yesterday bemused to learn what had been agreed in their name, while Labour’s David Taylor told The Commons last month: ‘People have a right to know that MPs live in their constituency.

Like many MPs, I am in the phone book and I welcome constituents who turn up at my address.’