An allegation of "fraudulent expense claims" by Brecon and Radnorshire Conservative MP Chris Davies has been referred to police.
The MP, who is an aide at the Wales Office, said he made a “genuine mistake” in how he submitted a claim for photographs which hang in his constituency office.
Mr Davies, who says he wants his “name cleared” and the matter “dealt with”, said an “administration error” took place and he has paid back £450.
The Conservative party received a complaint in March which was passed on to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa). This body then referred the matter to the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Davies said the information has been in the public domain for two years and that he had not known he had “done anything wrong”.
Last year, it was revealed that Mr Davies was one of four MPs who were being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards .
The MP, who joined the Commons in 2015 after winning the seat from the Liberal Democrats, said: “It was a purely genuine mistake... But it has to go through the system, which I completely understand.
“I’ve cooperated all the way through, chapter and verse. As I say, the only person who has lost out financially is me and it was a genuine mistake, a technical breach [as] Ipsa have called it, and that’s all it was but I’m in this position.”
He only became aware of the police’s involvement when contacted on Saturday afternoon by the Mail on Sunday.
Mr Davies said he paid a photographer £700 for images. He manually submitted a claim of £450 to be taken from the budget allocated for new MPs to open offices, which he had not used up. He intended to claim the remaining £250 from his separate office costs budget, although he never did this.
He said: “My father went into a hospice and died and my time was taken up with other things. To be honest, money wasn’t a concern – I had other things going on.
“So the £250 invoice never actually went in; the £450 one did but it was deemed to be incorrect and I’ve breached the rules [by] apportioning that invoice myself manually as opposed to doing it on the computer where I could have put the £700 invoice in, split it between two budgets and everything would have been fine.”
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said: “The compliance officer for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) made a referral to the MPS on Wednesday, April 4, in relation to an allegation of fraudulent expense claims submitted by an individual. The matter is currently subject to an assessment by officers from the Met’s Special Enquiry Team.”
A spokesman for Ipsa said: “Ipsa was made aware of this issue at the end of March 2018 and we have taken appropriate action, including the recovery of funds.”
