I don’t approve of very long posts on blogs but the present scandal over expenses is so serious that I thought I should re-publish a paper I wrote some 18 months ago. It was similar to the evidence I gave to Sir John Baker last year and more recently Sir Christopher Kelly. I considered re-writing it to take account of the current situation but I believe the central argument remains the same.
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I spent 26 years in the Commons and I have no doubt that MP’s across the party’s are hard working, committed and honest. The actions of a few have damaged their general credibility. The general failure to reform the whole financial structure which rewards and compensates MP’s for the work they do has however been an underlying cause of continuing public concern
Like many MP’s I entered Parliament and took a cut in salary. I think that is still the case for many MP’s today. There is an historical link between the problem of expenses and MP’s salary. In the 1960’s MP’s pay was ridiculously low and there were hardly any expenses available. The then Prime Minister Harold Wilson increased the expenses because increasing pay at a time of pay restraint was a gift to a hostile press. The failure to address the issue of relatively low pay therefore became confused with expenses. That confusion has never been clarified and that is why fundamental reform is long overdue.
MP’s take a high level of responsibility and work ridiculously, long hours – too long for their own or society’s good. So what is the answer? The first step should be to get a proper evaluation by a reputable independent body on what the pay ought to be. My guess is that it is very unlikely to be less than £120,000. Why? Because any job that involves you in decisions ranging from war or peace through to the welfare of constituents has to be at a level not less than senior professional people.
The Top Salaries Review Body is normally the organisation called in to decide these questions. One option therefore is to give the TSRB the authority to review MP’s pay annually and to apply their conclusion without reference to Parliament. They could also be responsible for deciding the amount and format of the expenses.
One of the disadvantages of using the TSRB is that they do not have detailed knowledge of the delicate balance between the independence of MP’s, the Party structure inherent in any modern democracy and the MP’s overriding responsibility to Parliament and their constituents. The one body that does have considerable knowledge of this is the Electoral Commission.
The Electoral Commission has established itself as a reputable body and is well placed to bring in consultants to review pay and expenses. Those consultants could be the TSRB acting under the instructions of the Electoral Commission or it could be a commercial company with the appropriate expertise.
If, as I believe, any independent body would conclude that an MP’s job is worth a far higher reward than it gets at present and as it does require two homes or long lets or hotel expenses then the answer is to set the pay at a level that reflects the responsibility of the job but gets rid of the second homes allowance which has always been an accident waiting to happen. A salary of £120,000 pa or more would mean the second homes allowance goes. An MP could then choose to use their additional salary to buy a second home if they so wished. Alternatively they could rent or use hotels as some already do.
MP’s then need a very flexible allowance probably not very dissimilar to what it is available at present but without any of the restrictions as to how it may be used. The quid pro quo for greater flexibility is total transparency and everything over £25 receipted. Why do MP’s need total flexibility on the use of the allowance? The answer to that lies in the nature of an MP’s job. MP’s are not like employees in a company called Parliament. They are and should be independent in the way they choose to work and they should only answer to their constituents who are the people who ultimately decide whether they should be allowed to continue.
Accountability should be exercised by transparency now agreed under the FofI and by media vigilance. It should not be decided by Parliamentary officials. Let me give an example of why that should be so. When I was involved in the politics of Northern Ireland but not operating in an official capacity i.e., not on the select Committee and not on the front Bench I had to go to Dublin. I was not allowed to claim the expense. On another occasion I was refused permission to go and see an early example of wave power being developed in Inverness because the issue was not before Parliament. MP’s must be allowed to use their allowance as they see fit and it is the duty of the electorate and the media to ask the questions about how it is used. If we take that duty away from the people and give it to paid officials then we emasculate the democratic process.
There is one other reform which could do more to ease the pressure on MP’s and restore there rightful position as the voice of the nation. Many of them will be deeply anxious about this proposal but it would be a very valuable reform. It is to reduce the number of MP’s to about 500 from the present 657.
Why is this so important? It is that MP’s are currently treated like big councillors and big social workers and they will remain in that role until councillors take back the local authority role and MP’s no longer have to spend so much of their time on local issues that are rightfully the duty of councillors. Because MP’s are reliant on small electorates often arranged along local authority boundaries they are driven to take any case that presents at the advice service. When I used to ask constituents why they came to see me about council matters they inevitable answered that they thought they “would go to the top”. In other words they saw MP’s as powerful councillors thus undermining the role of the elected councillors.
This reform alone would result in a far greater reform of Parliament than the changes to the voting system. It would put MP’s back in the driving seat for national and international policy and allow councillors to get on with the job of running local authorities – and making them more accountable
Your target pay figure is higher than almost any comparable European MP. I doubt the public will swallow it they will simply seethe at a distance in anger.
If you are going to boost pay at the bare minimum you have got to reduce/stop more than just second home expenses. The communications allowance which, perhaps a majority of the public and many insiders (going by the Politics Home polling) believe is unjustifiable. It is hard not to see its use as an incumbents’ taxpayer funded propaganda tool. Like many other parliaments employing relatives should be banned. That ~1/3 of MPs employ/employed a member of their family looks, irrespective of the case, to the public like just another way to cream in expenses. Lastly the practise of paying constituency parties a fee for office space/facilities ought to be banned as having too much potential to be a means to funnel cash to local party funds.
I have some sympathy with what you say about an MPs right to decide what trips they need to make but I don’t think relying on the press is quite enough to ensure probity. Alongside publishing each trip expense (not a single combined total) I think MPs and others should have their expenses published in an appropriate public place perhaps alongside the statutory lists of candidates close to election times.
While less important I do think there is more scope for all MPs being provided with certain equipment as left to their own devices there is an extraordinary range of cost claims for identical items of stationary and office equipment.
I think there is much to commend some reduction in the number of MPs – the public are more likely to swallow a pay rise on a reduced number and, if this can be combined with a reduced cost of politics, it will in tough economic times certainly help ease austere policy measures.
I’m cautious about reducing the number of MPs, as it seems MPs already have more than enough of their plate at the moment handling 70,000 constituents apiece; could we maintain the service they provide with greater constituents?
Adrian: I rather think Lord Soley’s point was that some of the job they are doing is not their job to do and they are probably not the most effective person to do it. As a side note post devolution much of Scottish and Welsh MPs work has gone – most legislation affecting their constituents they have no say over and most ‘surgery’ matters are now the practical domain of the MSP/AM.
While I very much favour proposed equalisation of constituency size it should be noted that at present we have examples like the Isle of White (109,000) that seem to function perfectly well enough at that size.
As I listen to my local MP at public meetings, I can only agree with your “Powerful Councillor” point. My MP always takes up a local grievance ie he wrote about a broken gutter belonging to a local business that was affecting a constituents back garden. Full marks for attention to detail, but what a waste of an MP’s time.
Let’s give Councils their power back so that they don’t just act as administrators of Westminster government decisions, and release MP’s to do what the EU has left them to do (which isn’t very much in legislative terms). Are you sure that we need 500 MPs to do this job? Seems like overkill to me.
However, members of the House Of Lords apparently have trouble with basic grammar.
I hope this was a first draft and that you didn’t publish the paper with that opening sentence.
And the LOtB software apparently dislikes the [s] tag.
McDuff: Strikethrough is a deprecated standard these days (4.01 & XHTML 1.0 Strict) though I haven’t tried on wordpress.
It’s brave criticising grammar as you’re bound to make a mistake eventually 😉
Lord Soley:I’ve seen the 500 MPs total suggested in a few quarters but is there a reasoned argument for that number or has it been grabbed out of the air as a crisp number?
The flaw in this idea, it seems to me, is that most people will consider MPs to be already pretty well-paid. I estimated elsewhere that MPs are at about the 96th percentile of income in the UK – i.e. they are better paid than 95% of the working population.
European MP’s are in a different position in most cases. they operate the list system of voting so they don’t have constituencies as we do. In the last fifty years constituency work has taken up far more time than in the past so I think a higher pay rate is justifiable.
The figure of 500 MP’s is a bit of a rough estimate but it is deliberate. David Cameron is being much more specific. Why? Because the number he was coming up with yields a great electoral advantage to the Tories. That is why I want the figure to be assessed by an independent body – probably the Electoral Commission – so that electoral advantage is not central.
Sorry about the technical aspects and my grammar!
Isn’t that conflating two separate things? My understanding of the Tory proposal was that the reduction was to be achieved by setting upper and lower limits for constituency size ironing out the variations between say Western Isles and the Isle of White populations of (2001) 26,000 & 132,000 🙄
However I understand that the Tories have more of the large constituencies and fewer of the smallest than labour which is part of the reason for the differential swing needed for the governing party to change. You could obviously reduce the number of MPs on the present rules or keep the number the same and reduce the variations both of which would have different electoral effects. Not that I object the an independent body – though the boundary commission would presumably make reports on any change either way.