Revised 'expenses law' defended

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Gordon Brown has insisted laws passed to "clean up" Parliament in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal are a world first - despite major concessions.

The Parliamentary Standards Bill became law after just three weeks of scrutiny in the Commons and the Lords.

But plans for a legally binding code of conduct and two new criminal offences had to be dropped to get it through.

The prime minister said the "essential elements", including an independent body to run expenses, were "intact".

Mr Brown announced in May he wanted a legally binding code of conduct for MPs and in June the government outlined plans for three new criminal offences for MPs.

Commons defeat

The code of conduct was dropped, as were two of the three offences as the bill progressed through Parliament, amid heavy criticism.

A third contentious issue - allowing MPs' words, usually protected by Parliamentary privilege, to be used against them in court - was defeated in a Commons vote when 20 Labour MPs rebelled.

Initial plans to have the bill apply to the Lords too were dropped and the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority had some of its enforcement powers removed.

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As MPs debated the final stages of the bill on Tuesday, Tory backbencher Mark Field said: "They may get a few good headlines tomorrow morning about how they've got the bill through but the bill has itself already been emasculated."

At his last press conference before the summer recess, Mr Brown was asked why his pledges had "disappeared".

"It has not disappeared at all. The central elements of the bill are there," he said.

Mr Brown said the bill meant an end to self regulation by creating an independent authority to regulate their affairs and handing it the power to develop financial interest rules for MPs.

He added that the important new offence had survived and it created a criminal offence for fraudulent expenses claims.

"Just as local government and just as in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, where there is fraud that is now punishable by a particular offence related to members of Parliament, a year in prison."

"So all the essential elements of the legislation are not only intact but we are the first in the world to do something like this that makes all self regulation a thing of the past and moves towards statutory regulation for the future."