Commons Fees Office Censored Expenses Even When MPs Objected

Coverage of MPs' expenses has understandably focused on the way that key details were blanked out.

Some of the worst excesses were only spotted because a newspaper obtained unofficial copies of MPs' receipts, with all the details intact.

As I have said in the Birmingham Post in the past, I was one of those people who had doubts about whether the Daily Telegraph was right to publish advance, leaked details of expenses claims - but was soon forced to agree that they were.

We always knew that the receipts would be censored before the official release. You can see how the process works in the video I made a few weeks back.

But I think some of the reports in today's papers, which suggest MPs simply got to choose what to delete, give the wrong impression.

I've written today, in a story which should go up on this website before long, about two MPs - Andrew Mitchell (Con Sutton Coldfield) and Liam Byrne (Lab Hodge Hill) - who actually asked for information to be public, and were told by the Commons fees office that it would be censored whether they liked it or not.