It is Up to MPs to Restore Their Reputation

It is Up to MPs to Restore Their Reputation

Iain Dale 10:07 AM

Yesterday the Leader of the House of Commons Harriet Harman brought further shame on the institution. She used the Heathrow announcement as cover and slipped out the news that MPs won't after all, be forced to publish receipts for all their expenses. David Hencke has the full details HERE, but here's the crucial part.

Harriet Harman, the leader of the house, got Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to table a parliamentary order that will exempt all MPs and peers from having to release detailed expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.

The order, which will come into force 24 hours after being debated next week in parliament, will stop in its tracks all the victories won by campaigners and journalists to bring full transparency to individual MPs' expenditure on travel, equipping their second or constituency homes, staffing, office details and individual travel receipts by air, rail and car.

The timing is extraordinary. The parliamentary authorities were poised to release a mindboggling 1.2m pieces of papers detailing three years' individual expenses after a two-year battle covering all but the Sinn Féin MPs. The public had already had a foretaste of what was come last year when a limited release of expenditure for a small number of MPs revealed lots of detail - from the £1,920 pergola and plants ordered by Margaret Beckett for her constituency home to Barbara Follett, the wife of the successful author, Ken Follett, and Labour MP for Stevenage claiming £1,600 for cleaning the windows of her London home.

Now none of this will become public, and all existing FOI requests will be blocked. There is an alternative disclosure scheme planned but it will not provide the detail. And the public suspicion of MPs will grow. Everyone will think their elected representatives have something to hide.

As Guido says...

They claim that it would be too expensive to account for all expenditure - try putting that on your tax return. Some MPs are taking it upon themselves to voluntarily publish ALL their expenses, some will not, draw your own conclusions. If they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide...

Proper, transparent reform will clearly never come while the Old Guard retain power. After the next election it is very likely that there will be two hundred new MPs. Together with the 2005 intake, it is they who must insist on a proper reform of the system.

In the meantime I hope two things will happen. Firstly, that many more MPs will follow the example of Tory MP Ben Wallace and voluntarily publish the full details of their expenses. And secondly that individual voters put pressure on all parliamentary candidates to give a commitment that when they are elected they will do exactly that.