Yorkshire MPs in expenses appeals

The five Labour MPs – who include a former Government Minister – and one Tory are among 70 members known to be disputing the controversial audit of MPs' expenses carried out by former civil servant Sir Thomas last year.

More than 300 MPs – nearly half the entire House of Commons – are understood to have been asked to repay money by Sir Thomas, who will publish his potentially explosive report on Thursday. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague are among those who have already agreed to repay sums.

Letters were sent to the Commons offices of all 70 MPs who are contesting the review's findings late last week, informing them of the outcome. Many had already left Westminster for the weekend and so will only discover the results on their return this morning. But two Yorkshire MPs have revealed they were successful in reducing their repayments.

Keighley MP Ann Cryer said on Saturday her repayment had been "radically reduced" on appeal to 1,600. Yesterday Shipley's Philip Davies said he had successfully overturned a 260 repayment demand relating to a claim for the installation of a phone line at his constituency office during his first month as an MP.

Mr Davies said: "It was a perfectly legitimate expense. My mistake was to put it on the wrong form. It should have come out of the office expenses, and instead I claimed on my second home expenses. I appealed because it was a perfectly legitimate claim and there was no actual loss to the taxpayer. Sir Paul Kennedy (the retired judge overseeing the appeals process) obviously agreed."

The Legg review has been criticised by some MPs for setting retrospective limits on how much members could claim for costs such as gardening and cleaning. The revelation that a number of appeals have been upheld has led to further accusations that the process was flawed. But Mr Davies insisted MPs only had themselves to blame for their predicament.

He said: "This (audit) didn't come about in a void – it came about because of the understandable public concern about the seemingly widespread abuse of the expenses system. It got to the stage where a public audit was absolutely necessary."

The four other Yorkshire MPs who have appealed Sir Thomas's findings were either unavailable yesterday or declined to comment.

Morley and Rothwell MP Colin Challen – who was reportedly asked to repay around 9,000 – and Leeds North East MP Fabian Hamilton both said they did not wish to comment before seeing the outcome of their appeals.

Other MPs to have contested the review's findings include Rotherham MP and former Europe Minister Denis MacShane, Colne Valley MP Kali Mountford, Tory front-benchers Ed Vaizey and Julian Lewis, former Tory leader Michael Howard and seven current Labour ministers, including Immigration Minister Phil Woolas.