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Tories warn of more Euro expenses time bombs - Telegraph

Tories warn of more Euro expenses time bombs
By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

Conservative Euro-MPs have warned David Cameron that there were more "time bombs" to come in the expenses scandal enveloping Tories in the European Parliament.

The party leader sent Andrew Robathan, the deputy chief whip, and Hugh Thomas, the party's new "head of compliance", to Brussels to read the riot act to the Tory Euro-MPs.

During heated talks, including private sessions with individuals, one Euro-MP predicted "there will be more time bombs" if London forced members to disclose how they spent their annual £38,500 "general expenditure" allowances.

Party sources fear that in some cases the rules are being broken by Euro-MPs using the money to fund directly regional Tory activities and offices.

One Tory Euro-MP said that he knew of at least one northern Conservative region where the allowances were being "misused".

Mr Thomas, a former ethics enforcer in the City, told the Euro-MPs that they had two months to make their expenses "as transparent" as the new system being introduced by the Tories in Westminster.

But during bad-tempered discussions over the reforms, Mr Robathan, Mr Thomas and Conservative Central Office officials heard accusations that factions "close to the shadow cabinet" were stoking the controversy.

Neil O'Brien, the director of Open Europe, was one of those accused of doing dirty work for senior Tories such as William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, by campaigning for greater openness from Euro-MPs.

Some Conservative Euro-MPs fear that Mr Cameron is prepared to "butcher" four or five of them to cleanse the party's image.

"In the end there will be full transparency and MEPs might as well get on with it now," Mr O'Brien said.

"The expenses scandal is spreading to all parties and there will be a huge electoral premium for whichever party leader is the first to tackle sleaze."

There were new questions over the future of Den Dover, the former Conservative whip in the European Parliament, who lost his post following controversy over-payments of allowances totalling £760,000 into a family firm.

Conservative officials are investigating donations to the party, worth £2,900 in cash and in kind, from MP Holdings Ltd, the company run by Mr Dover's wife and daughter to handle secretarial and administrative allowances that are worth £160,000 every year.

The Liberal Democrats were in disarray over figures showing that eight of their 11 Euro-MPs had donated £86,000 to the party over the last seven years.

Andrew Duff, the leader of the Lib Dems in Brussels, and one of those who made cash gifts, denied that the donations were siphoned off from excess travel allowances.

"I guess so many of us donate to the party because the party is relatively poor and deserves our support," he said. "All donations are private. Parliamentary rules prevent the subsidy of a political party by the parliament, directly or indirectly."

Under current rules, Euro-MPs are paid at a fixed travel rate regardless of whether they drive, fly business or economy class or take the train. The arrangement allows them to run up large annual surpluses that are treated as private income.

Chris Davies, a Lib Dem Euro-MP who gave his party £22,000 between July 2003 and April 2004, has previously admitted using his "excess" travel allowances as donations.

"We get a ridiculously generous travel allowance," he told the BBC last week.

But Mr Davies said: "I do not make donations to my political party out of expenses intended to meet the cost of performing my parliamentary duties in any way."