If anyone was expecting that the list telling 390 MPs to repay around £1.1 million in expenses would draw a line under this issue, they were sadly mistaken.

Some MPs are already questioning how well Sir Thomas Legg carried out his audit – and it is true the final total was reduced by £180,000 through successful appeals.

Meanwhile, the judge who ruled on those appeals, Sir Paul Kennedy, was “particularly troubled” that MPs who had not broken any rules at the time had been accused of making “tainted” claims.

What we can say for certain is that the expenses system was totally unfit for purpose – something the report’s author was right to recognise.

It was seen by too many MPs as a way of topping up their salary without anyone batting an eyelid.

And it is good to see some of them having to pay back money they should never have had in the first place.

But the Legg list does not distinguish between the good and the bad – those MPs who made a genuine mistake and those looking to exploit the system.

So we must remember that there will be members on the list who have little or nothing to reproach themselves about, including some of this area’s own representatives.

Tarring everyone with the same brush does nobody any favours.

The public, of course, deserve better – a fair, robust and transparent system so they can properly hold the people for whom they vote to account and identify with certainty the real culprits who have cynically exploited the system.