Expenses probe too slow - Clegg

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The latest inquiry into MPs' expenses will take too long to complete, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has told the BBC.

Gordon Brown has asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to widen its planned independent review of pay and allowances to include second jobs.

It follows news that minister Tony McNulty claimed expenses for a house his parents lived in.

The review, which follows a five-month inquiry by MPs last year, will not start work until the autumn.

Mr Clegg told the BBC it was "frustrating" the subject of expenses was going to be the subject of "another drawn-out process".

Year-long row

He told BBC Radio Five Live: "The chairman has said he doesn't think he's going to come back with recommendations until after the next general election.

"Gordon Brown, David Cameron and myself could sit down tomorrow morning and just agree a new set of rules."

The row over MPs expenses has been going on for more than a year - following the reprimand of Derek Conway over payments made to his son in January 2008.

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At the time the government promised a "root and branch" review of the allowances system, carried out by a committee of MPs.

But after a five-month inquiry many of the recommendations - including abolishing the controversial "John Lewis list" of items that could be bought under the second homes allowance - were rejected by MPs last summer.

However some changes were voted through and the government says a new regime starting in April, which includes involving the National Audit Office in auditing claims, will provide a tighter system of scrutiny.

On Monday Gordon Brown wrote to Sir Christopher Kelly - chairman of the committee on standards in public life - asking him to widen out an inquiry into pay and allowances to include outside interests and second jobs.

'Embarrassment'

The workings of Parliament "must be transparent, accountable and of the highest standards", he adds.

But the Tories said the prime minister was trying to divert attention from "embarrassment about the expense claims of yet another of his ministers than any desire for real change".

The Tories have asked Parliament's standards commissioner to investigate claims made by employment minister Tony McNulty - thought to total about £60,000 - for the house he owns in his Harrow East constituency, where his parents live.

I think we will have failed if we don't produce a set of recommendations which will command public confidence Sir Christopher KellyCommittee chairman <a class="" href="/1/hi/uk_politics/7960423.stm"> Full text: Brown expenses letter </a>

He moved out in 2002 and lives a few miles away in Hammersmith. He said he used the house as a base when he visited the constituency but stopped claiming the allowance in January.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith - who found her own claims under the controversial second homes allowance under scrutiny earlier this year - told the BBC the expenses system had improved.

"I know that there has been a lot of progress over the last 12 years," she said.

"We are massively more open in the way in which we claim and account for our expenses now than we were when I was elected in 1997.

"But it seems clear that there is more work that needs to be done and therefore I think it is appropriate that the committee on standards in public life look at that."

She rejected suggestions she had stretched the limits of current rules on allowances by claiming £116,000 for her "second home" - the house she shares with her husband and children in Redditch - while describing her main home as her sister's house, where she stays when she is in London.

Mr Clegg told the BBC no Lib Dem MPs representing London seats claim the second homes allowance.

Sir Christopher told the BBC: "I think we will have failed if we don't produce a set of recommendations which will command public confidence and provide MPs with the support they deserve in the difficult jobs they do, free of the taint of suspicion."