North Wiltshire Tory James Gray is at the forefront of a parliament campaign to demand MPs are allowed to travel first class on trains.

Mr Gray is among dozens of MPs who have written to Parliament's new expenses watchdog protesting at plans to scale back their claims.

He complained at suggestions they should give up their right to taxpayer-funded first-class rail travel, while others said they should not be banned from employing family members as parliamentary assistants or lose farewell payments of up to £65,000 when they stand down.

Mr Gray argued that first-class rail tickets were essential in order to work while travelling between Westminster and their constituencies.

"Middle-ranking majors in the Army and similar people in the civil service travel first class and it seems to me to be a reasonable expectation that after 13 years of doing so I should be allowed to continue," he said.

Senior Conservative backbencher Sir John Stanley even suggested it might be contempt of Parliament to require him to commute to Westminster from his Kent constituency rather than claim for a second home.

The Tonbridge and Malling MP revealed he had taken advice from Clerk of the Commons Sir Malcolm Jack over whether Sir Christopher Kelly's proposal to withhold second home expenses from MPs within a "reasonable commuting distance" might amount to contempt by obstructing members in the discharge of their duty.

Some 43 individual MPs responded to a consultation by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which is aiming to introduce a reformed expenses regime in time for the arrival of a new Parliament following this year's general election.

Many of them protested that proposals on the table risked turning the House of Commons into the preserve of those with independent means.

And several, including Labour's Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey), suggested that the allowance system should be scrapped altogether in return for a pay rise for MPs of up to GBP35,000.

Mr Wyatt said the expenses "fiasco" arose because "no prime minister from Edward Heath onwards has had the balls to pay MPs a decent salary".

In some parts of London, primary school headteachers were earning more than MPs, he complained.

"All MPs need is a decent salary and no allowances," said Mr Wyatt, suggesting a rise from the current £65,000 to £100,000 for MPs from constituencies outside London and £76,000 for those from the capital.

Tory deputy chief whip Andrew Robathan said "a proportionate amount"

should be added to MPs' salary to pay for a second home.

Ipsa's approach was "unlikely to lead to a restoration of trust in Parliament" and would increase the cost of politics, warned the Blaby MP.

"The whole tenor and thrust of the document is one of punitive reaction to stories in the press," he said.

"Some of the proposals appear designed to humiliate MPs ... By denigrating and humiliating MPs, one denigrates and humiliates parliamentary democracy and by implication the people an MP represents."

Ipsa was set up to overhaul the allowances system in response to the expenses scandal, after which it was agreed that MPs could no longer set their own rules.

It put forward a set of proposals in January, based in part on the recommendations of last year's Kelly Report on MPs' expenses by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Ipsa's proposals include scrapping the resettlement grant for retiring MPs, worth up to about £65,000 depending on age and length of service.

They also include stopping MPs buying homes with mortgages subsidised by the taxpayer. Instead, they would be forced to rent.

In a submission to Ipsa's consultation on its proposals, a cross-party committee of senior MPs said the new system would increase the range of expenses members were forced to meet themselves.

The Members' Allowances Committee said abolishing the resettlement grant would "add considerable financial insecurity" to being an MP.

It complained that making MPs meet all payments directly before claiming them back "would add major cash-flow problems".

"Ipsa's proposals as they currently stand would be a major step backwards towards a House of Commons which only those with substantial private means could afford to belong to," it went on.

"We also believe that Ipsa's proposals on accommodation and on travel could strongly deter anyone with dependent children, especially women, from standing for Parliament."

In its submission to Ipsa, the Government pointed out that it had accepted the Kelly committee's recommendations in full, as had the other major parties.

"We therefore believe that the recommendations within that report should provide the way forward for the new expenses regime," it said.

"We would urge Ipsa, therefore, to look to each of those recommendations in constructing a new scheme in the knowledge that they have the support of the Government."

Tory Ann Widdecombe said requiring MPs to travel standard-class was "spiteful rather than sensible".

Pointing out that she had written two books almost entirely while travelling on first-class tickets, she added: "Second class being more of a thoroughfare, interruption and engagement in conversation is a great deal more frequent."

Miss Widdecombe also denounced the ban on employing family members as "short-sighted and spiteful", while Mr Gray described it as "mean-minded and unnecessary".

Labour MP Tom Levitt (High Peak) said Ipsa was effectively asking MPs who employed spouses and partners "to identify the longest-serving, most loyal, most sympathetic, most flexible members of our staff, who are most likely to work extra hours for nothing - and sack them."

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