LONDON—Three UK MPs and one peer face criminal charges under the Theft Act over their expenses claims, the director of public prosecution has announced.
The three Labour MPs, Elliot Morley, Jim Devine, and David Chaytor, together with Tory peer Lord Hanningfield are due to appear in court in March.
The CPS was investigating six potential cases following revelations about the abuse of the expenses system that began last May.
“These files have been reviewed very carefully by senior prosecuting lawyers in the CPS, assisted where necessary by an external and highly experienced criminal QC,” said the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, in statement.
Lord Clarke will not face charges, and the sixth case is still under investigation.
In a joint statement the MPs said that they would refute the charges and “defend our position robustly”.
In their statement they said: “We are clearly extremely disappointed that the DPP has decided to instigate proceedings against us.
“We maintain that this is an issue that should be resolved by the parliamentary commissioner who is there to enforce any breach of the rules. Clearly parliament’s system of expenses is utterly discredited, but we believe there has been a complete inconsistency of approach to different individual cases.”
In his statement Starmer said lawyers representing the MPs had raised the issue of Parliamentary privilege.
“We have considered that question and concluded that the applicability and extent of any Parliamentary privilege claimed should be tested in court,” Starmer said.
The announcement comes the day after a review of the expenses system declared it was ”deeply flawed” and that over half of the country’s MPs were required to repay expenses.
