Moran and Kirkbride quit as MPs

Two women MPs - one Labour, one Conservative - bowed to the inevitable today and announced that they will be standing down at the next election in the wake of the expenses scandal sweeping Westminster. They are Julie Kirkbride (above right), Tory MP for Bromsgrove, who follows her husband out of the Commons, and Margaret Moran (above left), Labour MP for Luton South, whose £22,500 claim for dry rot treatment on a 'second home' that was actually 100 miles from her constituency, was one of the most high-profile revelations in the Daily Telegraph's series of reports on Commons expense abuses.

Kirkbride's expenses first came to public notice when the Telegraph reported that she and her husband Andrew MacKay, Tory MP for Bracknell, were both claiming second-home allowances - on their London apartment and their home in Bromsgrove. As a result, MacKay, under orders from party leader David Cameron, held a meeting with constituents last week. It turned so ugly that the MP had little choice but to announce he would stand down at the next election.

Since then, a further report in the Telegraph has revealed that Kirkbride also used the Commons allowances system to reward two siblings.

Her brother Ian has lived rent-free for five years in the Bromsgrove property, even registering an IT business at the address. Furthermore, records leaked to the Telegraph showed that he bought £1,000 worth of electrical equipment which were paid for out of his sister's office allowance. Kirkbride insisted the items were "entirely in relation to my parliamentary duties" and not for his IT business.

At the same time, it was reported that Kirkbride's sister Karen has been paid £12,000 a year - again at the taxpayer's expense - to be Julie's "executive secretary". Yet she carries out this work from her own home in Dorset - more than 140 miles away from Julie's Bromsgrove constituency and 107 miles from Westminster.

That was not the end of it. Today, the Daily Telegraph reported that Kirkbride has increased her taxpayer-funded mortgage to help finance a £50,000 extension to her Bromsgrove home to create an extra bedroom for Ian. Ironically, as The First Post reported yesterday, Kirkbride was for several years a political correspondent for the Telegraph before entering Parliament in the 1997 general election.

Margaret Moran's announcement today came shortly before a Labour disciplinary panel was due to decide whether she could stand for the party again. It appears she decided to jump - "following discussion with my family" - before being pushed.

Like Kirkbride, Moran still insists that she followed the Commons rules on expenses to the letter. ·