ANY MPs who fiddle their expenses could face up to a year in prison under Government proposals, published last night, and aimed at cleaning up the system of Parliamentary allowances.

The Parliamentary Standards Bill will establish a new independent body to administer MPs’ pay and allowances with a Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigations to probe alleged breaches of the rules.

It will also create a series of new criminal offences, including knowingly providing false or misleading information in a claim for an allowance. That would incur a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison or an unlimited fine.

MPs who fail to register properly their outside interests will face a fine of up to £5,000, as will any MP who breaches the rules on paid lobbying.

Gordon Brown said he was determined to ensure legislation was on the statute book by the time MPs break for their summer recess at the end of July.

“We are determined to do everything in our power to clean this up and I am not going to rest until we have got this legislation through,” he said in an interview ahead of the Bill’s publication. “This reform is the biggest you have ever seen in Parliament.

“You have not seen this in any period of the history of Parliament.

“I am determined that it is cleaned up in such a way that we can say to the people of this country: ‘We listened, we heard, we knew something was wrong, we have now dealt with it’.”