ONE of the region’s MPs launched an attack on yesterday’s “sell the home, sack the spouse” expenses crackdown.

Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman branded anti-sleaze watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly an “establishment” figure ignorant of the reality of being an MP.

The Work and Pensions Minister also said his crackdown must be “looked at thoroughly”

– putting her at odds with Gordon Brown, who pledged to accept the full package to try to kill off the damaging expenses scandal.

Another North-East MP, Redcar’s Vera Baird suggested MPs’ pay – £64,766 – might have to be increased to ensure ordinary people were not “priced out of parliament”.

The backlash came after Sir Christopher’s Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended a hard-hitting shake-up that will save the taxpayer up to £10m annually – but cost individual MPs thousands of pounds. They would be banned from buying second homes with taxpayer help and barred from employing family members, although both changes would be delayed for five years.

Instead, MPs would rent homes from a commercial agency – claiming expenses only for essential costs, while meeting their cleaning, gardening and furnishing costs.

Only MPs staying in hotels would be allowed to claim for the cost of food – scrapping the £25-a-day unreceipted “subsistence” allowance – and generous “golden goodbyes”, of up to a year’s salary, would be phased out.

Last night, Ms Goodman said: “We need to look at the report thoroughly, to ensure that, while achieving the necessary tightening up to prevent abuses, we don’t go back to a time when parliament was a place for wealthy men.”

Ms Baird, the solicitor general, said the proposals should be accepted, but said: “If there is a danger that ordinary, relatively poorly-paid people who want to come into parliament are going to be priced out of it by this, then of course pay will have to be looked at.”

Sir Stuart Bell, the Middlesbrough MP who sits on the Speakers’ Committee that will oversee implementation of the changes, said: “The recommendations are proportionate and not draconian. No MP can obstruct it, because it is not their business. There will be no debate and no vote.”

That comment reflects the reality that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) – not MPs – will decide whether to accept the Kelly report in full, after a consultation starting next month.

The new IPSA chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy, who will earn £100,000 a year – for a three-day week, said his final report would be completed “early next spring”, before the expected May General Election, to come into effect immediately after it.