MPs face 6pm deadline to pay back expenses

MPs have until 6 o'clock tonight to pay back the expenses they were ordered to return by the official inquiry into the now discredited Commons system or they could face having their pay docked. As of Friday around 10 current and former MPs had not made the repayments with the outstanding balance thought to total at least £100,000. Some are expected to write their cheques today after returning from recess and Commons officials are making strenuous efforts to track down each one right up until the deadline to secure the repayment. Those who don't have the funds are being asked to sign agreements detailing how they will pay the money back. Those who refuse to return the funds are likely to be forced to repay them, with the Commons poised to vote to sanction the docking of pay or the resettlement funds paid when an MP steps down. But there are concerns that one former MP has refused to engage in any contact with the Commons authorities in order to repay his expenses bills. Some 392 former and current MPs were ordered to pay back £1.12m after an inquiry by the former senior civil servant Sir Thomas Legg earlier this month, which examined the last five years of MPs' personal expenses. Legg condemned MPs and the "deeply flawed" and "vague" system they operated in, accusing the fees office, which administrated the system, of operating within a "culture of deference". By Friday the Commons authorities overseeing MPs' repayments had still not had any contact with the former Ministry of Defence minister Ivor Caplin. The Labour MP left parliament in 2005 and has since gone into business as a political lobbyist. He was ordered by Legg to repay £17,865.33 he owed for failing to submit receipts for interest payments on his mortgage. Legg's report, published on 4 February, said: "No reply has been received from Mr Caplin to a number of letters sent to the address held by the house authorities." In a issued statement issued on Friday , Caplin said he had received no communication from Legg and said he had written to him and was "awaiting a reply". At the end of last year the Commons members' estimate committee (MEC), chaired by the Speaker, John Bercow, announced there would be a vote in the Commons to sanction officials to reclaim expenses from MPs' pay or resettlement grants if they refused to return it voluntarily. But this still leaves questions about the former MPs, who no longer have links with parliament.