The ThunderDragon

Instead of letting MPs claim money to have a second home in London, it has now been suggested that we buy them a block of flats to use instead:

Buying a block of flats or hotel for MPs is not a good idea. The Westminster village is insular and incestuous enough as it is, without hemming them in together at all times during the working week. MPs need to experience real life as much as possible, and this sort of proposal - even excluding the physical impracticalities - will just make MPs even less connected with the rest of us than already.

Rather than this idea, why not just cut the amount that MPs will be given towards a second home to the average mortgage payment or rent nationwide? If they want nicer accommodation than that will pay for as a second home, they can pay it themselves from their not-inconsiderable salaries.

Plans for Brown Force One have been scrapped. The go-ahead for these was one of the last things that Tony Blair did as Prime Minister, yet it has taken Gordon Brown not far off a year to decide to cancel the order.

It was nothing more than an expensive status symbol, with no real point or benefits. It is a very good thing that this waste of our money has been stopped, but questions have to be asked about why it took so long for the decision to be made.

A. Tory has got out his “Excel geek” hat, put it on, and analysed MPs expenditures for the last parliamentary session. He has then awarded those who have shafted the taxpayers - that’s you and me, folks - the most. And unsurprisingly all of the winners bar one are Labour MPs. And the only non-Labour MP? Angus MacNeil of the SNP. And the winners are:

Total expenditures: Shahid Malik, spending £185,421 of our money
Office and staff costs: Barry Gardiner, spending £123,852 of our money
Car travel: Janet Anderson, spending £13,851 of our money
Rail travel: Alan Milburn, spending £15,785 of our money
Air travel: Angus MacNeil, spending £30,560 of our money
Staff travel: Mohammad Sarwar, spending £4,500 of our money
Stationery and postage: Siobhain McDonagh, spending £49,107 of our money
IT: Liam Byrne of the Labour Party, spending £2,545 of our money
Staff cover and other costs: Joan Ryan, spending £19,068 of our money.

That’s one hell of a lot of our money. Visit Letters From A Tory for more details, even though he hasn’t published the entire Excel spreadsheet [which he should].

All the expenses claimed by MPs are to be published. Good. If they’re spending our money, we have a right to know how it is being spent. What shocked me was the ‘John Lewis’ list:

And money can be claimed by MPs for this in the following ways:

How the hell can this be justified at all?! I don’t begrudge MPs being paid some money off-set the cost of a second home - which their job requires them to have - but unless this money claimed on a second home is to be paid back when the second home is sold, it effectively amounts to a very nice payment of at least £22,000 extra per year. Plus any profit made through the increase in house prices.

With second homes, either Parliament should own them and just allow the MPs to use them or MPs should pay us back at least the savings/benefits that they generate from owning a second home at the taxpayer’s expense.

MPs should also have to provide a receipt for every single claim they make on expenses. If it is too small for them to bother with a receipt, it’s too small for them to mind paying for themselves.

The expenses that MPs should be subject to audits to ensure that they are not defrauding the taxpayer. I doubt that many are on a massive basis, but when it is our money that they are spending it needs to be checked. The expenses should also be made public on at least a quarterly basis, so that we know what the representatives that we elect are charging us.

Tory MP Derek Conway has been outed as employing his son as a parliamentary researcher whilst he was a full-time student and paying him £1,000-plus per month, with a total of around £13,000 salary - plus bonuses. And all from taxpayer’s funds, for work that wasn’t done. Certainly not work to that value, anyway.

There is no excuse for what he has done. It is utterly disgraceful and unacceptable. He should have to repay every penny that has been wrongly taken. Every. Single. Penny. From his own money.

Just giving him a suspension from the House of Commons is not enough of a punishment - and the wrong sort of punishment. By suspending from the House of Commons, the people who are suffering are his constituents. What should instead happen is that he should have to continue working, but receive no pay.

I don’t agree, however, that this “should be the last-chance saloon for the scandal of MPs expenses. It should mean that MPs finally come clean and reveal full details of who and what is being paid from the public purse.” Because that isn’t fair on the individuals who work for MPs for their salaries to be public knowledge. Instead, MPs should have to reveal whether they are employing any immediate or close family member and any payment they receive- and why. That is as it should be - but not for all personnel. Just those who are related to them.

Like ConservativeHome, I think that Cameron’s reaction hasn’t been decisive enough. But I don’t think that the removal of the whip from Conway is the way to go. Instead Cameron should have declared that the Conservatives will be imposing a significantly greater punishment on Conway than the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. After all, if they ejected him, they’d only end up bringing him back in eventually and reincarnating the whole story then. Far better to get it over with right away, and try and cut out as much comparison with Labour’s sleaze issues as possible.

… and even though Labour took the £180,000 they were offered, they still broke electoral law.

It is absolutely disgraceful that even though they were given £183,052 by the Electoral Commission in order for “training staff in the duties imposed by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and was specifically for the party to prepare for its requirements on submitting accounts and declaring donations above £5,000.”

What annoys me most about this is that it is yet more taxpayers money being given to political parties, even if for a specific purpose. Parties shouldn’t need to be given this sort of money for them to sort out their own internal procedures to comply with the law. Companies don’t get given money to train staff and to prepare to meet its legal requirements, so why should political parties? Obviously the money they given cannot have been spent properly on doing this, or else the mistakes that led to “Donorgate” simply would not have happened.

Since they were given money from the taxpayer’s purse in order to comply with the law that they passed, it makes their acceptance of known illegal donations even less acceptable.

That all political parties have received this money as well means that for any of them to break the law is simply not good enough, and implies a lack of respect of the tax-paying electorate.

Sources: The Times, BBC