Legg ACA publication re repayments received/requested from MP’s
Parliament unanimously supported the setting up the Legg ACA Review last summer to investigate all MP’s ACA accounts for each year 2004-2008.Sir Arthur Legg was commissioned to report back to Members Estimate Committee which is chaired by Mr Speaker, and he has now done so. His report was published 4th Feb. 2010 and the following information are extracts from it regarding decisions on my ACA accounts which I am publishing on my website with my comments of explanation.
Legg’s own interpretation of the remit given to him by the House of Commons to examine four years of ACA accounts, excluded consideration of the full period of their review when evaluating overpayments. (See Table 2 comments with footnotes). Table 1; I made an error by putting the wrong date on the claim form i.e. March 2007, when it should have been for January 2007, i.e. only eight weeks difference and within the same financial year (2006/07). Therefore it was neither a duplicate claim or overpayment but Legg, knowingly disregarded that I only claimed 10 of the 12 months in 2006-2007 and still judged it was a duplicate claim and an overpayment.
Regardless of my difference of opinion with Legg’s interpretation of his remit and how he applied it to my ACA account, he was commissioned by Parliament to independently conduct his work. I said when he began his review that MP’s should accept his conclusions and where they are requested to make repayments, they should do so.
Note: – When taken over the four year period of Legg’s ACA Review (2004-2008), I have not received more in repayments than my declared and verified expenditure.
Below: – Table of summaries from Sir Arthur Legg’s ACA Review report with MP’s comments.
| No | Allowance | Year | Amount | Description |
| 1 | ACA Legg | 06-07 | £1,630.14 | Mortgage £445.15 & duplicate claim £1,185.00 |
| MP’s Comments | ||||
| My claim submitted dated 31 March 2007 was mistakenly dated for 01-31 March 2007 and should have read, for 01-31 January 2007. Wrongly dated but there was no over payment for 2006/07. | ||||
| 2 | ACA Legg | 04-05 05-06 |
£3783.35 | Overpaid for mortgage interest in 2004-05 (£2,434.46) and 2005-06 (£1,348.89). |
| MP’s Comments | ||||
| Total mortgage interest paid to lender (Abbey National) for years 2004-2008 (MIRAS) [1] was £24,540. Total monies claimed back from ACA for years 2004-2008 was £24,280 (Legg letter 12 October 2009) [2] N.B. Over the 4 year period of Legg’s ACA Review 20004-2008, there was no overpayment from ACA for mortgage interest. | ||||
[1] MIRAS documents supplied by lender Abbey National to Legg ACA team for each financial year 2004-05; 2005-06; 2006-07; 2007-08 of payments received for mortgage interest payments only.
[2] Figure from Legg ACA team 12 October giving details of payments for mortgage interest paid to MP over the period of the review.