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Speaker: MPs who flip homes will be named
Ben Bailey18.09.09
The public will be able to see if their MP has "flipped" their second home when the next set of parliamentary expenses are published, Commons Speaker John Bercow said today.
Mr Bercow said he was confident that new Commons rules would stamp out the problem of MPs switching the designation of the property on which they claim their second homes allowance - one of the most serious abuses identified in the MPs expenses scandal.
Although MPs' addresses would still not be published when details of the 2008-09 expenses were released, he said people would be able to see if they were claiming on properties in London or in their constituencies.
"I think the arrangements we are proposing, where we know whether a member has claimed on a London property or a constituency property, changes will be evident," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"If the media can see a change has taken place, then, of course, questions are legitimately viable.
"I do think it's important in future that we should be capable of telling the media and members of the public if somebody has flipped."
He said that in future, far less information would be blacked out - or redacted - when the expenses are released by the Commons.
"The redaction will be markedly less than on previous occasions. There has been legitimate concern. We've got to have a very narrow and legitimate set of things which are excluded from publication," he said.
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