Search: MPs' expenses row
There have been accusations of a "behind-the-scenes stitch-up" following reports that key elements of the proposed plan to clean up the system of MPs' expenses could be scrapped.
Earlier this week Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the Committee for Standards in Public Life, published his keenly awaited plan to clean up the system in the wake of the expenses scandal.
However it was reported that Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, who has been appointed to head the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority which will be responsible for implementing the changes, is set to drop some of the main recommendations.
The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail both reported that he had concerns about the proposals to ban MPs from employing family members and to force them to hand back the profits from the sale of second homes bought with assistance from the taxpayer.
According to the reports, Sir Ian is now planning to run his own consultation exercise before deciding which of Sir Christopher's recommendations he will accept.
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker - an outspoken campaigner for reform - said that he was "deeply dismayed" by the reports.
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He said that the changes Sir Ian was reportedly considering would undermine Sir Christopher's report and open the door for those MPs opposed to his findings to re-open the whole issue.
"That rips the heart out of what Sir Christopher Kelly says. There is not very much left after that," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. "It will fuel suspicion I'm afraid amongst the public at large that, just as this matter was being put to bed, here is another behind-the-scenes stitch-up."
He said that public concern would be heightened by the disclosure that Sir Ian was a close friend of Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell.
Sir Ian was quoted by The Daily Telegraph as telling Westminster insiders that there was "no obligation" to implement Sir Christopher's report which was "only one of the bases of the conversation" over the future of MPs' allowances.
