Scots MPs told to repay profits from homes

Brian Donohoe, the Labour MP for Central Ayrshire, has been asked to pay back £9469 and has so far paid back £2100 of the total, which he has agreed to settle in full.

They are among 71 MPs who claimed £926,159.75 of taxpayer cash over a 15-month period, with 29 of them told to hand over the Capital Gains Tax on the money they made from their second properties by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa).

Meanwhile, it has emerged that a court action is to be taken against Conservative MP Stewart Jackson by Ipsa to recoup £54,000.

Mr Jackson said he was mounting his own legal challenge against the watchdog, which he accused of over-estimating the capital gain on his family home in his Peterborough constituency and then rushing into "heavy-handed and disproportionate" litigation to recover the sum. He accused Ipsa of trying to "bully me into submission".

The other MPs involved have all agreed to pay the sums demanded in full.

Among those not asked for repayments were Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who claimed £9104 on a home in his Sheffield constituency, and former foreign secretary David Miliband, who claimed £5903 on a property in his former seat of South Shields.

In May 2010, Ipsa moved to ban the use of Commons expenses to pay mortgage interest in the wake of the expenses scandal and the public fury over MPs "flipping" their homes and other abuses.

However, transitional arrangements were put in place permitting those elected before 2010 to keep claiming the money up to last August – as long as they agreed to return any potential capital gain.

Some 71 MPs claimed almost £1 million between them over the 15-month period but the majority were not asked to make repayments because surveyors' reports or sale prices showed their properties had not gained in value.

However, 29 of them were asked to make payments to reflect the increased value of houses and flats – many of them in London, which had bucked the sluggish housing market prevailing in the rest of the country at the time.

The largest repayments were made by Welsh Secretary David Jones, who represents Clwyd West, who returned £81,446, and the DUP's Gregory Campbell, MP for East Londonderry, who handed over £61,403, both for properties in London. In both of these cases – and that of Mr Jackson – the MPs were asked to repay more than they had received because the value of their property was calculated to have risen by more than the cost of the interest payments.

The properties were formally valued at the beginning and the end of the period in question and the 29 MPs were told to hand back a total of £484,828.49. Most have now paid in full although in seven cases Ipsa has agreed to accept payments in installments, with the final repayments due in April 2015.

MPS who face having to pay back profits from taxpayer-funded homes include:

David Jones(Con), Welsh Secretary and MP for Clwyd West - £81,446;

Gregory Campbell(DUP), MP for East Londonderry - £61,403;

Stewart Jackson(Con), MP for Peterborough - £54,000;

Philip Hammond(Con), Defence Secretary and MP for Runnymede and Weybridge - £34,884;

David Gauke(Con), Treasury Minister and MP for South West Hertfordshire - £26,763;

Andrew George(LDem), MP for West Cornwall - £22,534;

Nigel Dodds(DUP), MP for Belfast North - £19,508;

Brian Donohoe(Lab), MP for Central Ayrshire - £9469;

Hazel Blears(Lab), MP for Salford and Eccles - £7644;

Michael Connarty(Lab), MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk - £6833;

Andy Burnham(Lab), Shadow Health Secretary and MP for Leigh - £4456;

Ken Clarke(Con), Minister Without Portfolio and MP for Rushcliffe - £737.