Gordon Brown waded into the row over MPs' expenses yesterday by asking the chairman of the committee on standards in public life to hold an urgent inquiry.
The prime minister also tried to wrongfoot the Tories by saying that Sir Christopher Kelly, the standards committee chairman, should at the same time examine the issue of MPs' outside interests, including paid jobs outside parliament. Many Tory frontbenchers hold second jobs. Brown said in his letter such jobs should be included in the inquiry since it was necessary to look at the full picture.
Kelly responded by announcing an inquiry into MPs' expenses, only months after he had decided not to do so on the advice of the leader of the house, Harriet Harman.
The Tories dismissed Brown's intervention as "a typical trick" designed to hide his government's refusal to act earlier. Conservative chairman Eric Pickles said: "This is a case of too little too late from a prime minister who failed to ask the right questions about the activities of his own employment minister."
Brown and Kelly acted in the wake over the news that the employment minister, Tony McNulty, had been claiming expenses for a second home in his constituency owned by his parents, and even though he lived in Hammersmith, a few miles from his Harrow constituency,
McNulty admitted his claim had been anomalous, but had not broken any parliamentary rules.
Kelly's inquiry is likely to look into whether MPs should be paid more in return for losing access to second home allowances. It is not clear when the inquiry will take place, but it could represent an uncomfortable backdrop for Labour ahead of a general election next year.
McNulty came under further pressure last night over his claim for £60,000 in expenses when a Tory MP made an official complaint. Greg Hands, the MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, lodged the case with John Lyon, the parliamentary standards commissioner, saying McNulty was in breach of rules since he did not appear to have stayed overnight regularly in the property in his Harrow constituency.
The Labour MP, who has lived in Hammersmith since 2001, stopped claiming "second home" expenses for the Harrow home in January and said at the weekend that he had "always felt some discomfort in claiming the money".
Details of his claims reopened the issue of whether MPs within commuting distances of Westminster ought to claim the allowances at all. Yesterday, Sir Alistair Graham, the standards committee's former chairman, floated the idea that McNulty should consider repaying the money and said the minister had "questions to answer about the affair".
McNulty stopped claiming expenses for the Harrow home the same month that Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, came under fire for claiming £116,000 to pay the mortgage on her constituency family home while claiming her main home was a room in her sister's London house. McNulty insists the two events are unconnected.
MPs are allowed to claim the additional costs allowance, worth up to £24,000 a year, to help them with the costs of a second home.
