The head of the new watchdog charged with cleaning up Parliament is at the centre of a political firestorm after it emerged that he may scrap key elements of the plan to overhaul the system of MPs' expenses. Skip related content
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Anger over possible expenses snub
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy has let it be known that he is ready to abandon the proposed ban on MPs employing family members paid for out of the public purse.
Even more controversially, he is also reported to be planning to drop a requirement for MPs to hand back any profits they made when they came to sell up second homes which had been bought with mortgages subsidised by the taxpayer.
The two measures were key planks of the reform plan published earlier this week by Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the Committee for Standards in Public Life.
However, Sir Ian, who was appointed as the chairman of new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), made clear that he had "no obligation" to accept the plan.
He also indicated that he thought some of Sir Christopher's recommendations were open to legal challenge and that he was intending to launch his own consultation process.
The news was greeted with alarm by supporters of reform who warned that Sir Ian was opening the door to those MPs opposed to change to unravel the whole of Sir Christopher's plan.
Labour MP John Mann said that Sir Ian should quit if he was not prepared to implement Sir Christopher's recommendations in full.
"If he is intending to start consulting again and reopen it, he should resign because that's not his job," he said.
"We can't go through another review, put off again the end of this expenses scandal with MPs hoping in some way they can give more submissions to another body. That is a total nonsense."
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