Parliamentary Family Fortunes
The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said there was “no intention” of MPs having to go “into any detail” about the work they pay family members to do. Erm, why? We, the poor suffering taxpayer, are paying for them so why should we not know what work they are doing?
Besides, what exactly would the point of just having a register of who has family members working for them without any further details? The issue with Derek Conway wasn’t that he was employing his sons, but that he was paying them over the odds to do work that they weren’t actually doing. If the details are not known and recorded, why bother creating this register? It’s a waste of everyone’s time and our money in that case, and worth nothing except as an attempt to appear transparent rather than to be transparent.
And it seems that even the European Parliament - despite it own great problems over Members finances - are to go a significant step further than Westminster and ban MEPs from employing family members.
This is a step too far in my opinion. All that is needed is a proper register of what family members do and the payment they received - not a piss-poor attempt like that suggested for Westminster, but a proper full register. Otherwise there’s no point.
Do it properly or not at all. Half-measures help no-one.
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