FORMER Scunthorpe MP Elliot Morley faces trial over allegations of fiddling his expenses after losing an appeal yesterday.

The former minister claimed that the mortgage claims on his second home in Winterton are protected by the 322-year-old right of parliamentary privilege.

But the Court Of Appeal in London again rejected that argument, clearing the way for 58-year-old Morley – who denies any wrongdoing – to face criminal trial.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said a High Court judge had been "correct" to rule last month that the expenses claims were not protected.

He said: "The stark reality is that the defendants are alleged to have taken advantage of the allowances scheme designed to enable them to perform their important public duties as members of Parliament to commit crimes of dishonesty to which parliamentary immunity or privilege does not, has never, and, we believe, never would attach.

"If the allegations are proved, and we emphasise, if they are proved, then those against whom they are proved will have committed ordinary crimes."

Morley, who stood down in May after representing the town for 23 years, is charged with falsely claiming £30,428 in interest payments between 2004 and 2007 towards the mortgage on his second home.

Some of the claims were too high, it is alleged, while others were made after the loan had been paid off.

Morley and three fellow politicians have argued that parliamentary privilege, a protection enshrined in the 1688 Bill of Rights, means the allegations should be dealt with by Parliament and not the courts.

That argument was rejected in June by High Court judge Mr Justice Saunders, who said there was no "logical, practical or moral justification for a claim for expenses being covered by privilege".

The Court of Appeal agreed yesterday, with Lord Judge – sitting with Lord Neuberger and Sir Anthony May – concluding: "Even stretching language to its limits we are unable to envisage how dishonest claims by members of Parliament for their expenses or allowances begin to involve the legislative or core functions of the relevant House, or the proper performance of their important public duties.

"In our judgement no question of privilege arises, and the ordinary process of the criminal justice system should take its normal course, unaffected by any groundless anxiety that they might constitute an infringement of the principles of parliamentary privilege."

Morley and his fellow defendants are now expected to take their argument to the Supreme Court.

If their final appeal is rejected, the four could face separate criminal trials at Southwark Crown Court in London.

Former Labour MPs David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield also deny charges of theft by false accounting, which could lead to a possible seven-year prison sentence.