North East MPs defend their expenses claims

Jun 19 2009 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

Editing costs £2m

THE process of scanning and editing all the receipts from 2004-8 has cost £2m and taken 13 months to complete. An internal probe is still ongoing as to how a "raw" version of the material fell into the hands of a national newspaper, sparking panic among MPs as more and more faced allegations of impropriety. But police have already confirmed they will not take any further action over the leak because those involved had a public interest defence.