The TaxPayers' Alliance today reacted to the news that David Chaytor has been sentenced. The former MP is the first to be sentenced for criminal charges for expense claims he made in parliament, a number of others are being investigated or tried. After failed attempts to appeal that MPs should be given special treatment, he was today brought in front of a judge to face the consequences of a massive abuse of public trust.
The TaxPayers' Alliance has long campaigned for a fully transparent MPs' expenses system, and have been active critics of the behaviour and attitude revealed in the expenses scandal in the summer of 2009. It was entirely unfair for ordinary families to be picking up the tab for the luxury lifestyles and out of control costs of many of their MPs. Taxpayers were rightly furious.
Matthew Sinclair, Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:
"While it has been a long time coming, it is good to see that at least one MP is finally facing justice for stealing taxpayers' money. It was an outrage that they were able to rip off taxpayers on such a scale, and other MPs also need to be punished for what went on, but now that the public can see that politicians are not above the law we can start to move on from this crisis. We now need a completely transparent expenses system and proper controls to ensure that this kind of crime against the public that MPs are supposed to serve never happens again."