Thursday, 20 May 2010

MPs angry at new expenses body


Women MPs say stringent new rules banning taxis home before 11pm put them at risk of attack

The ornamental duck house which Sir Peter Viggers claimed £1,645 for.

The claim for an ornamental duck house led to a wholescale review of the system for paying MPs' expenses. Photograph: PA

Today may mark a historic moment as David Cameron and Nick Clegg unveil their programme for the first British coalition government since the war.

But most MPs are not poring over the Lib-Con document which is open for consultation on the Cabinet Office website. Instead Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs are seething with anger after their first encounter with the new independent body responsible for handling their expenses and salaries.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) was established last year after a collective loss of confidence at the height of the expenses scandal. In an attempt to end the clubby atmosphere, in which MPs would often bully the Commons Fees Office, an outside body was given statutory powers to approve the payment of expenses.

Here are some of the complaints I've heard from an array of MPs, whose language about Ipsa would be out of place on this happy-family blog:

• In their initial encounter with staff from the new body, MPs are greeted with a written message which says Ipsa will not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour. One former minister says:

We are being treated like benefit claimants. Why don't they just put up a metal grille?

• The requirements for payment of expenses are too stringent. If an MP wants to claim for the travel expenses from the constituency to Westminster of their spouse or civil partner, they must produce their marriage or civil partnership certificate. If they want to claim travel expenses for a child (under the age of 16 and in full time education) they must produce the original birth certificate. This is what the rules say:

Prior to any reimbursements of this nature taking place, MPs wishing to claim for this will need to submit a completed application form via the online expenses system.

To support this pre-approval, they will need to provide the original certificate of marriage, civil partnership, or utility bill to prove co-habitation.

Evidence for travel for will be the same as for MPs, based on the mode of transport.

One minister is furious:

For Christ's sake, what has happened if this bloody authority doesn't believe me when I say my wife is my wife? A utility bill to prove co-habitation? Good God.

• MPs in London are already having to lay off staff because the amount they can claim for office costs has been cut. They are also not allowed to transfer sums for their Westminster office to their constituency offices. Labour MPs feel particularly aggrieved because they say that, as representatives of less affluent urban areas, they have more casework than Tory MPs.

• MPs are not allowed to ask Ipsa staff any questions over the phone. They can only send emails which then form part of a formal audit trail.

• Taxis home can only be claimed after 11pm. One woman MP says:

What happens on a January night in London? I suppose I will have to take the tube, then a bus and then a long walk home. That is not safe.

MPs are resigned to the fact that there is nothing they can do. They have completely lost the trust of the public which is no mood to tolerate any easing of the rules.

One MP said:

We just have to accept this because the public is not with us. It will take something really horrendous, such as a woman MP being stabbed on the streets of London because she is not entitled to take a taxi home late at night, before people wake up and realise how unfair this is.


MPs admit that they have to tread with care:

There were some bad apples who did terrible things with their expenses. The system had to change. But decent people in all parties are being treated in an infantile way.


Ipsa says it is fulfilling a mandate handed to it by parliament. This is what it says in a foreword on its website:

We have been required by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, as a body entirely independent of Parliament, Government or political parties, to provide a scheme for the reimbursement of expenses incurred by MPs in doing their work. We have no axe to grind. We have set about our task against a background of great public anger at the present discredited system that has been exposed over the last year. We have consulted widely, not only those whom we are required by the Act to consult, but also the public at large.