Sir Thomas Legg gives Leech the all clear

11.41.00am GMT Fri 11th Dec 2009

Local Liberal Democrat MP John Leech has received a letter from Sir Thomas Legg concerning his review of MPs' expenses claims since 2004, confirming he had no issues with which to be concerned.

Sir Thomas was charged with conducting an independent audit into MPs' expenses over the last five years, assessing whether these had been in accordance with the rules and standards that applied over this time period. He has subsequently been writing to individual MPs to inform them whether their claims had been reasonable or not.

John Leech said:

"I have been happy to cooperate with Sir Thomas and give him all the information he asked for. I am glad he has confirmed that there are no issues he is concerned about."

He added:

"I have always said that it is important that when spending public money there are the right checks and balances. I have already released my expenses on-line, and have also put Sir Thomas's letter on-line too."

In addition to being given the all clear by the Legg review, Mr Leech's claims made as part of the 2008/09 additional cost allowance was the lowest of any of the five City of Manchester MPs, in many cases he claimed up to 50% less.

You can view John's expenses here http://john-leech.co.uk/pages/JohnLeechexpenses.html

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1. John Leech received the letter from Sir Thomas Legg on the 2nd December 2009.

2. In 2008 / 09 John claimed £8,684.20. This compares with £19,536.46 claimed by Graham Stringer (Manchester Blackley), £18,544.26 claimed by Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central), £16,073.09 claimed by Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe & Sale East) and £15,962.13 claimed by Sir Gerald Kaufman, in the same time span.