Gentlemen's club has ended - Brown
Gordon Brown has launched another bid to draw a line under the MPs' expenses scandal, saying: "The gentlemen's club has come to an end".
The Prime Minister admitted he was "appalled" by the scandal but insisted he was unaware of what had been happening.
Mr Brown claimed he had been tougher than other party leaders on the issue, suspending two MPs from the Parliamentary Labour Party and asking Justice Minister Shahid Malik to step down from his job pending an inquiry.
And he did not rule out taking further action against Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, who avoided paying £13,000 in capital gains tax.
Mr Brown was speaking on GMTV ahead of the unveiling of further measures, designed to restore public trust in politics.
The Government is setting out plans for independent regulators to take control of parliamentary pay and allowances.
The move - part of a major tightening of rules at Westminster which will also see a ban on servicing massive mortgages with taxpayers' money, as well as all claims being published online quarterly - follows the dramatic resignation of Commons Speaker Michael Martin on Tuesday.
Mr Brown said: "We will have a clean-up, we will have discipline, we will have a new system that takes it out of MPs' hands altogether."
He said that no longer would MPs be able to decide on their pay and how to discipline those who break the rules.
"It has got to be an external body that does it. There are many cases where people will be suspended and people will have to stand down and not be candidates at the next election."
