British Ex-minister Quits Parliament, Faces Corruption Probe

Mr MacShane

Former Labour minister Denis MacShane is facing a fresh police investigation after he resigned as an MP yesterday for fiddling his expenses.

Scotland Yard last night vowed to examine a report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards which found Mr MacShane guilty of submitting 19 false claims ‘plainly intended to deceive’ Parliament’s expenses authority.

But he could still dodge criminal charges because evidence submitted to Parliament is inadmissible in court.

The former Europe Minister announced he was quitting after MPs on the Standards and Privileges Committee banned him from the Commons for a year for what they described as ‘the gravest’ breach of expenses they have seen.

In total the claims were worth £12,900. The Standards and Privileges Committee said it was impossible to say how much Mr MacShane claimed ‘outside the rules’, but it ‘may have been in the order of £7,500’.

Mr MacShane last night appeared to be in denial, issuing a bizarre statement blaming his plight on the British National Party, which submitted the initial complaint about his abuse of expenses.

He claimed his transgression was ‘the manner I chose to be reimbursed for work including working as the prime minister’s personal envoy in Europe’.