MISUSE OF ALLOWANCES BY HON. MEMBERS (No. 2)

That this House calls for any hon. Member who is either convicted of a criminal offence in respect to their expense claims or found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have claimed expenses fraudulently or to have purposely misrepresented information to personally benefit from expenses to be forced to step down from their position with immediate effect triggering a by-election; believes that this is the only way to demonstrate to the public in a way that will command confidence that abuse of hon. Members' allowances will be properly punished; further believes that in any other job, people would be dismissed for such actions; further believes that hon. Members who are shown to have abused the allowances system have lost the confidence of people in their constituency who then in effect are not represented; and further believes that any hon. Members standing down under these circumstances should not be entitled to the severance payments which are designed to benefit them personally and are payable to hon. Members who stand down in other circumstances.