Two veteran Conservative MPs who were censured last year over their second home allowances have announced they will stand down from Parliament at the next general election.
Sir Nicholas Winterton and his wife Ann said they wanted to spend more time with their family and party sources said it was not known whether the recent furore over MPs' expenses had contributed to their decision to quit.
Meanwhile Labour sought to regain the initiative on expenses ahead of the June 4 European Parliament elections by announcing that in future its MEPs will publish all receipts for the £44,000-a-year office allowance - a step which no other major party has yet taken.
The Daily Telegraph, which has obtained leaked details of all MPs' claims for second home expenses, announced that its investigation had passed the halfway mark - raising the prospect that dozens more MPs will face publicity over their claims in the 10 days before the European and council elections.
The paper on Monday focused on Cabinet ministers' claims of thousands of pounds of public money for accountants to complete their tax returns.
Eight ministers - including Chancellor Alistair Darling, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Communities Secretary Hazel Blears - spent a total of more than £11,000 between them on accountants from the office allowance which is available to MPs on top of their second homes allowance. But the ministers insisted that the accountancy bills were in relation to their work as MPs and that the claims were allowable under the Commons rules.
Earlier this month, the paper revived controversy over the second home claims made by Sir Nicholas and Lady Winterton, which were judged to have broken Commons rules in a critical report by Parliamentary Standards Commissioner John Lyon last year.
After paying off the mortgage on their London flat, the couple gifted the £700,000 property to a family trust controlled by their children, and then paid rent on it from parliamentary allowances totalling more than £120,000 over six years in an arrangement condemned at the time as "indefensible" by Tory leader David Cameron.
In a letter to Mr Cameron announcing their decision to leave the Commons, Sir Nicholas and Lady Winterton did not mention the expenses issue, saying instead that they could no longer "maintain the hectic pace" of political life and wanted to "pass the baton to a younger person".
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Sir Nicholas, 71, has been MP for Macclesfield in Cheshire for 37 years, while his 68-year-old wife has represented neighbouring Congleton for almost 26.
