A former Labour cabinet minister has been sentenced to 16 months in prison in Britain for dishonestly claiming more than £30,000 in parliamentary expenses.
Elliot Morley, 58, pleaded guilty last month to making excessive claims for mortgage costs from 2004 - 2007 and claiming for a mortgage that had been paid off.
Morley, who was MP for Scunthorpe since 1987, stepped down at the general election last year.
The BBC reports the former environment minister is the third former Labour MP to plead guilty to expenses fraud.
When the accusations against him first surfaced, he claimed it had been a genuine mistake and said he would prove that he was not guilty of deception.
But the Crown Prosecution Service said his behaviour had been ''blatantly dishonest''.
Morley pleaded guilty to two charges of false accounting under the Theft Act.
