David Cameron tells Tory MPs: write cheque or face sack

whirlwind swept through Westminster todayas the main political parties ordered their MPs to pay back excessive expenses and promised to end the worst abuses of the system immediately.

On a dramatic day when the parties finally responded to the anger in the ­country it was David Cameron, the Tory leader, who moved most quickly, directing eight shadow cabinet members, including his closest political allies, to write cheques to refund the taxpayer for improper claims or face the sack.

Last night, in a series of television interviews, Gordon Brown said Commons officials would meet again tomorrow to work on plans for an independent figure to lead a team tasked with going through the past four years' of receipts for every MP before ruling on whether the claim was ­legitimate. But the Tories contested any suggestion that an agreement had been reached last night.

The communities secretary, Hazel Blears, also appeared on television brandishing a cheque she said she intended to send to the Inland Revenue, saying she planned to pay back the £13,332 made by avoiding capital gains tax when she sold one of her homes.

In a press conference today ­Cameron said he was shocked by revelations that party ­grandees, playing to the worst ­Conservative ­stereotype, had been claiming for chandeliers, moats, horse manure and the cleaning of swimming pools. The Tory leader ordered backbenchers, ­including some of the most senior ­figures in his party, to follow any payback ­instructions from a newly established party panel or face expulsion.

After addressing an emergency ­meeting of his parliamentary party, he said: "People are right to be angry that some MPs have taken public money to pay for things few could afford. You've been let down.

"Politicians have done things that are unethical and wrong. I don't care if they were within the rules – they were wrong. I can announce people from my shadow cabinet are now writing out cheques."

Labour, one step behind Cameron for most of the day, convened a meeting of the cross-party members allowances committee to start the process of agreeing which claims could be repaid if they had been granted "outwith the rules at the time".

Harriet Harman, the leader of the Commons, called for an end to flipping, whereby MPs switch the identity of their second home to maximise their claims. She also called on the committee to impose an immediate moratorium on claims for furniture, fixtures and fittings pending the outcome of the independent review being conducted by Sir ­Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the committee on ­standards in public life.

In a move that went further than ­Cameron, Harman also proposed a cap on the amount of mortgage tax relief MPs could claim on their second home.

Later in the day, Nick Brown, the chief whip, began meeting Labour MPs ­identified as making excessive claims and ordered them to consider refunding the taxpayer. Among those agreeing to reimburse the taxpayer was Margaret Moran, the Luton South MP, who had repeatedly switched her second home to maximise her claims and then filed expenses of £22,000 to cover the cost of removing dry rot from her partner's home in Southampton.

Blears, who originally denied claims that she flipped her homes, made her decision to pay money back after meeting Gordon Brown. Last night Blears wrote to the Inland Revenue setting out how she was willing to pay capital gains tax on the £45,000 profit she made in August 2004 for the sale of her one-bed flat in south London.

The Labour MP Harry Cohen also agreed to pay back claims he had made on his ­caravan in Essex.

Harman said it was right to address the issue on a cross-party basis, and denied she had been outmanoeuvred by ­Cameron, saying: "We don't have to see this in terms of a party political competition."

In a further development, the Liberal Democrats, previously unscathed from the revelations, disclosed that more than 10 of their MPs have been accused of ­wrongdoing. Sir Menzies Campbell, a former party leader, hired a leading ­interior designer to refurbish his small flat in central London at taxpayers' expense, spending nearly £10,000 on scatter ­cushions, a king-sized bed and a flat-screen television.

Nick Clegg, the party leader, also agreed to repay an £82 mobile phone bill on calls made to his family. He had also claimed £160 a month on gardening fees at his ­constituency home, but said he would not be paying this sum back.

In the most dramatic clean-up, Cameron confronted eight shadow cabinet ­members and told them they would be sacked if they did not agree to pay back questionable claims. He told his ­frontbench: "A Conservative government needs to be careful, not casual, with public money. That principle of thrift should apply to Conservative MPs as well.

"From now on, I want them to claim what is reasonable to do their job, not the maximum they can get away with."

Cameron promised to return the only maintenance claim he had made in his eight years as an MP: £680 for removing wisteria, and other repairs at his constituency home.

The shadow ministers making repayments was headed by shadow children's secretary, Michael Gove, who will return £7,000 paid for furniture, and the shadow leader of the house, Alan Duncan, who is to pay back almost £5,000 claimed for gardening. Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley will repay £2,600 for home improvements and the chairman of the party's policy review, Oliver Letwin, £2,000 to repair a leaking pipe under his tennis court. All future Tory claims are to go on a website as soon as they are made.