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Maria Miller has apologised to MPs for her attitude MPs should no longer have the power to police their own standards and ethics, the watchdog in charge of parliamentary expenses has said.

Sir Ian Kennedy's comments come after Culture Secretary Maria Miller apologised and was ordered to repay £5,800 in over-claimed mortgage costs.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Sir Ian said an end to the current system was "the only way forward".

MPs "marking their own homework always ends in scandal", he said.

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To avoid further damage to Parliament in the future, it should have the confidence to give away powers in regulating itself ”

End Quote Sir Ian Kennedy Ipsa chairman The Conservatives say Mrs Miller's apology has drawn a line under the issue.

But Labour has said Mrs Miller and Prime Minister David Cameron have "serious questions" to answer.

'Great progress'

The row dates back to December 2012 when the Daily Telegraph reported that Mrs Miller had claimed £90,718 in expenses towards mortgage payments on a house in south London that the MP shared with her parents.

The parliamentary commissioner who conducted the initial investigation into Mrs Miller's expenses ruled she should repay £45,800.

However, this was cut to £5,800 by the House of Commons Committee on Standards, which is mostly made up of MPs.

Sir Ian chairs the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), which was set up in 2009 to manage MPs' pay and expenses.

Mrs Miller's mortgage claims were made before Ipsa took over and her case "couldn't happen under Ipsa", he said.

He said "great progress" had been made under the new regime, put in place after the MPs' expenses scandal.

Maria Miller apologised to MPs for her attitude towards an inquiry into her expenses

But he went on: "There is a lesson from Ipsa which ought to be learnt with the Commissioner for Standards too.

"She should be given the freedom to carry out her work and not have her wings clipped by MPs.

"To avoid further damage to Parliament in the future, it should have the confidence to give away powers in regulating itself and see that independent regulation is the best, most transparent way forward."

The BBC's political correspondent Gary O'Donoghue said Ipsa had always had a "frosty relationship" with most MPs.

'Straight answers'

Labour said Mrs Miller and the PM should say "what they knew" about a call to a Telegraph reporter from the culture secretary's special adviser Jo Hindley in December 2012, in which she referred to Mrs Miller's involvement in deciding press legislation.

The Daily Telegraph said the reference to the Leveson inquiry into press regulation had been made to persuade it to back away from getting "straight answers" about Mrs Miller's expenses.

In the tape, Ms Hindley said another reporter had "doorstepped" Mrs Miller's father, who had just come out of hospital, at the south London house.

"Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors' meetings around Leveson at the moment," she added.

"So I'm just going to flag up that connection for you to think about."

Labour's shadow leader of the Commons Angela Eagle said both Mrs Miller and the prime minister needed to make clear what they knew about the call and what they did about it.

She said the recording raised "serious questions", including whether there had been a breach of the code of conduct for special advisers or the ministerial code.

'Attitude'

Meanwhile, emails released by the Commons Standards Committee revealed Mrs Miller told the commissioner investigating her that she might go over her head to ask MPs to intervene.

In one email, Mrs Miller said: "It may be that I shall need to refer this to the supervisory jurisdiction of the standards committee but I hope this can be avoided."

In another, she said a decision to uphold the complaint would be "irrational", "perverse" and "unreasonable".

In its report on Tuesday, the committee said Mrs Miller's submission of "incomplete" evidence to the inquiry had breached the MPs' code of conduct.

In addition to ordering her to repay £5,800, the committee said she should also apologise to MPs "for her attitude to the commissioner's inquiries".

Mrs Miller made her apology on Thursday, which the Conservative Party said had drawn a line under the incident.

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