Bournemouth's Conservative MPs vote to keep their expenses secret

12.09.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 20th May 2007

Bournemouth's Conservative MPs, John Butterfill (Bournemouth West) and Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) have voted to keep the public from knowing about their expenses claims. They backed a bill on Friday, to exempt MPs from Freedom of Information laws, so that they can keep their claims secret.

Earlier this year, the government lost a legal battle led by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker to require Parliament to publish the details of MPs' travel expenses claims under Freedom of Information.

Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth are campaigning to keep the information public. They have written to the two Conservative MPs to find out why they want to hide this information.

'Norman Baker did a great service to the country earlier this year when his legal battle forced Parliament to publish the detailed travel expenses of MPs,' says Ben Prescott

'As a result, many MPs have had to justify why they expect the taxpayer to pay for so much travel by car and plane. If their travel expenses are public, the evidence is clear that MPs do not treat themselves to such generous travel arrangements.'

'On behalf of Bournemouth Liberal Democrats I've written to Bournemouth's Conservative MPs asking what they've got to hide from the public.'

• Background:

The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, introduced by Conservative MP David Maclean, has two purposes. Firstly it removes both Houses of Parliament from the list of public bodies included within the scope of Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Secondly, it makes correspondence between Members of Parliament and Public Authorities exempt from the FoI Act 2000.

Related Links:

BBC: MPs who backed FOI bid.

Lib Dems: Freedom of Information Amendment Bill.