MPs' expenses: Illsley urged to quit after guilty plea

Eric Illsley was re-elected in May 2010 with a majority of more than 11,000

MP Eric Illsley is under pressure to stand down after admitting he fraudulently claimed more than £14,000 in parliamentary expenses.

He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to three false accounting charges over claims for his second home.

The MP, already suspended by Labour, will be sentenced next month.

Labour leader Ed Miliband urged him to do the "right thing" and resign from Parliament, while David Cameron called Illsley's position "untenable".

Illsley was re-elected as Labour MP for Barnsley Central in May, but was suspended from the party after being charged shortly afterwards and now sits as an independent.

If Illsley receives a prison term of 12 months or more he will be disqualified from being an MP under the Representation of the People Act 1981.

'Very difficult'

But Mr Miliband urged his former colleague to act now, telling the BBC: "He's no longer a Labour Member of Parliament. I think he should do the right thing and resign as a Member of Parliament because I don't think he can be a credible voice for his constituents having pleaded guilty to such a serious offence."

Mr Cameron's spokesman said: "His personal view would be that it would be a very difficult situation where someone has defrauded the people they are there to represent. That is quite an untenable position."

Senior Labour backbencher Sir Stuart Bell said Parliament should act to "make him resign" if Illsley did not step down himself.

"I would wish a resolution on the floor of the House and the waiving of the sub judice rule so that we can deal with him and we can expel him," he told the BBC.

"This is a matter for Parliament, its reputation and what the public expect of us. Parliament should, for once in its life, stand up for itself and take the action necessary in the interests of the public."

On Friday, former Labour MP David Chaytor became the first person to be jailed over the Westminster expenses scandal.

Illsley is the only serving MP among those facing court. He had previously denied dishonestly claiming more than £25,000 but his barrister, William Coker QC, said his client had admitted wrongly claiming a revised sum of about £14,500.

The expenses claims related to council tax, maintenance, repairs and utility bills for his second home in Kennington, south London, and were made between 2005 and 2008.

Simon Clements, head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime division, said: "This was a significant sum of money and the grossly inflated claims he submitted could not be attributed to an oversight or accounting error - indeed he claimed that the expenses system was a way of supplementing members' salaries.

"By his guilty pleas he has accepted that he was dishonest in making these claims. As an elected representative, Eric Illsley took advantage of the trust placed in him by his constituents to act honourably on their behalf.

"Instead, he siphoned off public money into his own pockets and betrayed those who rightly expected the highest standards of integrity from him as a Member of Parliament."

Judge Mr Justice Saunders adjourned the hearing for four weeks for a pre-sentence report on Illsley.

Backbench Labour MP John Mann said there was "obviously going to have to be a by-election" as it was "untenable" for Illsley to carry on as an MP.

He told the BBC News Channel it was "another bad day for Parliament" but he hoped it would demonstrate to the public that politicians were "not above the law".

Roy Millar, chairman of the Barnsley constituency Labour Party, said there would be meeting "in the future weeks and days" to consider a way forward.

"Eric has been a personal friend of mine for at least 25 years and he's been a very good servant to Barnsley and the people of Barnsley, representing them at all levels, but... we accept that the due process of the law will continue," he told BBC News.

David Chaytor was sentenced to 18 months in prison last week after admitting he forged tenancy documents and invoices to falsely claim more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money for rent and IT work from the Commons authorities.