Ex-MPs face wait over expenses-fiddling challenge

Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, who deny theft by false accounting, claim that any investigation into their expenses claims and the imposition of any sanctions "should lie within the hands of Parliament".

Their case has been before the Supreme Court - the highest court in the land - over the last two days.

At the end of today's proceedings the panel of nine justices reserved their decision, which will be given at a date to be announced.

During the hearing, Nigel Pleming QC, representing Chaytor and Devine, told the court that the parliamentary expenses scheme was part of proceedings in the House, so the men should be protected by parliamentary privilege.

"I also wish to emphasise as firmly as I can on behalf of these former MPs that this is not, and never has been, an attempt to take them above or outside the law."

He said the House had "the power to punish, and to recover any monies wrongly claimed, and is well capable of investigating allegations, including allegations of dishonesty, made against its members".

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, heading a panel of three Court of Appeal judges, earlier this year upheld a ruling by a judge at Southwark Crown Court in central London that they were not protected by privilege.

Lord Pannick QC, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, argued at the Supreme Court that parliamentary privilege or immunity from criminal prosecution had never attached to ordinary criminal activities by Members of Parliament.

Former Bury North MP Chaytor, 61, of Todmorden, West Yorkshire; ex-Scunthorpe MP Morley, 58, of Winterton, north Lincolnshire; and Devine, 57, of Bathgate, West Lothian, formerly MP for Livingston, are all on unconditional bail and due to face separate trials at Southwark Crown Court.