MP must repay £12,000 expenses

FORMER Warrington South MP Mike Hall – now MP for neighbouring Weaver Vale – has been told he must repay £12,639.28 expenses.
Mr Hall, (pictured) former leader of Warrington Borough Council, who announced earlier this week that he would be standing down as an MP at the General Election on health grounds, had appealed against the ruling but had his appeal rejected by High Court Judge Sir Paul Kennedy.
Among claims made by Mr Hall which were said to be excessive were cleaning bills of £2,364.28 and “household sundries” of £8,789.
Altogether, 381 MPs have been ordered to repay a total of more than £1 million – an average of £3,000 each – following a lengthy, five-year audit.
Some are known to be angry because they believe the auditor, Sir Thomas Legg, applied the rules too harshly.
But Sir Thomas has criticised what he described as a “deeply flawed” House of Commons expenses system.
He was also critical of senior MPs who, he said, between 2004 and 2009, had been more focussed on the “immediate interests of MPs than propriety in public expenditure.”
On Wednesday, Mr Hall announced he would stand down at the General Election because of a heart condition. He entered Parliament in 1992, when he won the Warrington South seat from the Conservatives and switched to Weaver Vale in 1997.
He said for 18 years he had suffered from a condition called paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF) which has been successfully managed by medication.
But last July the medication became less effective and he has been subjected to frequent outs of AF leaving him unable to drive or work effectively during each episode.
A change in medication did not work. On January 22 he underwent pulmonary vein isolation radio therapy ablation surgery to correct his irregular heart beat.
Initially results were promising, but then his heart started to beat very irregularly leaving him feeling uncomfortable, breathless, and unable to work.