"MPs use expenses to avoid petrol pinch"

The Times reports that (my emphasis):

"Members of parliament are demanding extra allowances to pay for record petrol prices and rising road taxes, while voters struggle to meet the rising costs of motoring.

The parliamentary panel reviewing MPs’ expenses has received a barrage of complaints that the allowance for using their cars on constituency duty is “ridiculous”.

Travel allowances are being examined in a review of the discredited parliamentary expenses system by a cross-party committee headed by Michael Martin, the Speaker.

MPs receive 40p per mile for the first 10,000 miles by car and 25p per mile thereafter. The rate used to be 72p, but they can claim 350 miles a month — £1,680 a year — without receipts. "

Wherever I have worked there has been a very simple expenses system; present a receipt and if authorised you will be reimbursed, no receipt then no reimbursement. If this works in the real world then why not for our pampered MPs, they should realise that we don't just trust them to be "honourable members", in fact many of us wouldn't trust them to give us the right time.