MP who broke rules on home expenses must repay £28,000

An investigation has ruled Skipton and Ripon MP David Curry broke Commons rules by claiming thousands of pounds in expenses on a constituency house he barely stayed in for four years.

The Standards and Privileges Committee – from which Mr Curry stood down after the allegations first emerged – said the Tory former Minister had been "careless", but reduced Standards Commissioner John Lyon's recommendation to repay 38,000 by 10,000 because it accepted he had used the property during the daytime.

Mr Curry was criticised, however, and told to apologise for breaking rules by failing to change the designations of homes during a period when he had separated from his wife in 2004.

And he was criticised further after being found to have "deliberately breached the rules" by failing to declare his job as chairman of Dairy UK.

In a statement, Mr Curry – who is standing down at the election – apologised for the rule breaches and said he would hand back the money.

"I accept the conclusions of the Standards and Privileges Committee in the report published today," he said. "I am grateful to the committee for its clear statement that in all the issues under investigation there was no intention on my part to conceal, deceive or derive personal benefit.

"I have already written to the chairman of the committee to apologise for the mistakes I made and will repay the amount requested."

Mr Curry is one of Yorkshire's longest-serving MPs, joining Parliament in 1987 and serving as Agriculture Minister under John Major. The committee's verdict means he will leave Westminster repaying one of the largest sums of money from the expenses scandal.

Mr Lyon rejected Mr Curry's argument that he often used the house in Yorkshire as a day-time base for work in his constituency, which is one of the country's largest, because he estimated he only stayed there for six nights between 2005 and 2009.

He described the breach as "serious", although the committee reduced the repayment he recommended because it said Mr Curry had not been trying to profit from the arrangement.

The committee said: "We believe that this reflects careless behaviour on Mr Curry's part and that there was no intention on his part either to deceive or to derive an improper personal benefit. Mr Curry made some use of the property while on parliamentary business, which mitigates his failure to observe the rules."

Mr Curry admitted he moved out of the marital home in Essex during 2004 after having an affair. When he was subsequently reconciled with his wife, the couple agreed that they needed to spend more time together and he all but stopped staying in Yorkshire overnight.

The committee concluded he had broken the rules in failing to change the designation of his main home from Essex in 2004 but he was not deemed to have benefited financially.