The issue of travel expenses for parliamentarians is again in the news. At the moment, members of both Houses are entitled to travel first class. I always travel by train – I use it as a travelling office – and the value of first class is the availability of a table. It is also possible to get a table in standard class if it is not crowded. Whenever I travel to catch an East Coast connection at Doncaster, I travel from Hull to Doncaster standard class and, because of the time of day I travel, there isn’t a problem getting a table seat. (I should add there isn’t the option of first class anyway on that line; my point is that the conditions are fine for my purposes.) Normally, I travel with Hull Trains, which is a direct service. Booking in advance, which I virtually always manage to do, can result in getting a first class ticket for little more than a standard fare – on occasion, depending on the time of travel, even cheaper.
Travelling first class is obviously convenient for members. However, it is expensive (though not always – as I have touched upon – that expensive) and we live in times when economy is important. My view – which is not necessarily going to make me popular with some of my colleagues – is that we should be reimbursed for standard class travel. It will then be up to us, if we wish to do so, to pay out of our own pockets to upgrade to first class.
At a cost to the taxpayer of over 2,000 pounds a day, what’s the problem?
So what if the government’s accounts are worse than the Greeks.
Lets get the expenses in whilst the game is still being played.
Phillip, I’ve posted the numbers for the costings as to why you cost us over 2,000 a day. I haven’t seen the post come though.
Would you like me to post it again, or are you going to post your numbers to show that I’m the one who has no financial accumen?
Wolfie/nick/Wolfgang: May I suggest you read what other people actually write? I have already explained that the expenditure of the House of Lords is not the same as the cost of peers. The expenditure of the House includes costs that are independent of the cost of peers attending and contributing to the work of the House and would be incurred regardless of our existence. I have given examples of what these costs are. On the assumption that other readers do read what is posted, I will not bother repeating them.
I like to think that I am a fairly patient individual, but even I tire after a while of a stuck record. You keep repeating yourself without doing other readers the courtesy of reading what is posted. It really is like talking to a brick wall.
Not true.
I stated quite clearly that the cost of a peer per day, all up, is 2,200 pounds.
What you are now trying to do is to wriggle because I suspect you accept that figure as accurate, since its based purely on Lords information.
So to twist it you, you’re now trying to answer a different question, namely,
What would be saved by abolishment of the Lords.
You’ve done this repeatedly which is why I’ve stuck at it.
Your first attempt was to ignore the cost to us and try and spin it as the cost being the amount the Lords pocket as individuals.
However, let me answer that question for you
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldbrief/147/147.pdf
Property costs appear on page 31.
15 million up from 14 million.
Now with no wear and tear, that leaves well over 100 million to be used to pay down debts.
So when you go round saying its like talking to a brick wall, perhaps you should consider your own advice.
Have you read what’s been posted?
In particular, have you considered what question has been asked and did your answer answer the question posed, or was it something else?
Something to ponder in first class on your way home, unless you get button holed by Nicholas Winterton, in which case you have my sympathy 🙂
If you are going to debate or discuss at your best you have got to be prepared for it.
It is one thing spending a tenner return up from Sussex and back by midnight; quite another from 6 hours ride away, and an essential stay overnight.
If I attend parliament again, which is unlikely, I shall be on National express off peak,and my prefered mode of transport, even wtih a broken tib and fib, is a bicycle.
Time taken and diet, getting some place on a bike, more than offsets the saving made by cheap motor transport,so I shan’t be taking that either.
No! costs for distant members are unavoidable.
I wish a bit of ‘common sense’ could be applied here. With ‘forward booking’ and advance planning, MPs and the fees office could arrange travelling First Class on the occasions when they have lots of luggage or are staying overnight on trips and so on.
What I think people are so annoyed about is the sense of entitlement some MPs feel – as though we are supposed to ‘look up to them’ just because they have the letters MP after their name. Society just doesn’t work in that stratified hierarchical ‘rank structure’ anymore.
I would look up to people far more if they treated people equally than if they are under the illusion that because they’ve served in Parliament, that puts them on a par with army majors who may have risked life and limb to keep us out of harms way.
There is a serious point about how Standard Class is now so much more busy to the rail companies using ‘yield management’ and web booking to ensure that the trains are always chock-a-block, and with fewer tables on the newer trains.
But all this is lost if someone continues to have the view that the people travelling in First Class are a different tribe, when in many cases there are business people who may use both on different occasions depending on the nature of their journey.
I wouldn’t want to see a blanket ban on mps travelling first class as it might lead to them just taking to their cars, but maybe on an occasional rather than a routine basis.
It’s easy to attack a House which still specializes in patronage for claiming travel expenses to do the patronizing.
Until we get another Lord Falconer, it is something up with which we shall have to put.
I must be exceptional in never accepting fees for the political campaigning I have done during my life and being socialist for a good part of it too.
Quite a lot of my years of campaigning was done on a BR £6 day return train ticket to Victoria, but I can understand the need of some people to claim allowances from afar, such their dedication may be.
One imagines falsely, that patronage, like virtue, would be its own reward, but travel
allowances are required too.
Frank Dobson of course, says that his constituents “do not expect him to live in the constituency” but that is the other place.
I do not believe in elitism or excuses for it. Peers should pay their own way and not get allowances of any sort.
That would reduce the number of peers to a
very proper trickle, just enough to do the work alloted, and alloted before they turn up to see if there is anything “they can do” in the chamber, of debate perchance.
Some would still attend, from all parties and none, and patronize without parliamentary fee, or allowance.
Gareth Howell: It used to be the case that peers received no allowances. That was in the days when members were wealthy. Allowances were introduced to ensure that it was possible for those who were not independently wealthy to attend the House and contribute to its work.
There is no need for a form of elitism in an age where even Lords are blowing the trumpet of equality. If you can afford first class by all means pay for it but do not expect the tax payer to pick up the bill.
If the Lords WERE paying Income tax then they would be able to argue with IR for first class travel. They`re not paying tax, which may appear parasitic to some of the public, so are not entitled to make rules on their own payment.
I have voiced opinion previously that the position should, in this modern age, be a salaried one, I am still of this mind. At least then a Lord may hold his/her head up and say I do put in to the Country and am not a charity case, even the Queen pays voluntary tax on her private income.
To go in sign a book, have a chat, to get an allowance – doesn`t sound much different to those with UB40`s.
What is occuring at present is fiddling with the system, what it needs is complete overhaul for the sake of all involved.Time and again people have stated, here and elsewhere, numbers need to be limited in the House. It`s common sense yet all we get is a bit of fiddling with the system, it`s not good enough. The view that the Lords is parasitic in nature has to be changed, you no longer raise armies or taxes for the Crown.
If the view of the people is that the Lords have little effect on Government legislation then they will say “why are they there ?Why are they taking from us ?”
Personally I believe the Lords does have effect, this can be greater with more integration with the people, however I have to justify that and I shouldn`t have to. You should.
You cannot be a charity case, the equivalent of those on the dole and then claim “First class” travel. Do the work, pay your taxes, hold your head up.
This is not aimed personally at any members but at the system, it doesn`t need overhaul it needs change.
I think when people reach a certain level or stage in their careers, they expect to travel first class, for many of the reasons you’ve mentioned, such as being able to work and being able to find a seat. But I also have to say that I used to not understand why anyone would pay more just to have a nicer seat, but as a fairly frequent rail traveller, I’m now see the point of first class: to avoid the small minority of unpleasant people who sit in standard. Most people are fine – I don’t agree with that snob Winterton. I’d prefer those people who are drunk or rowdy be banned from the trains, but that isn’t going to happen, so first class would be the answer. At the moment, I can’t really justify first class, but I hope one day I’ve reached a stage in my career when I can. Do we really expect the people who sit in our upper house of parliament to travel in standard class? In a way, the suggestion is demeaning to us all, not just the peers who have to travel.
As for ticket prices, Lord Norton, I suspect you are comparing advance first class ticket with walk-up standard class. Advance standard tickets would presumably be even cheaper. There should be a system in place to ensure peers and MPs make use of advanced fairs whenever possible (whatever class of ticket). Is it permissible to buy a season ticket instead? This could be economical for anyone who lives within commuting distance.
I do have one anecdote to finish with, although I dare not say to whom it refers. Needless to say it’s an important person who is always bought a first class ticket when he travels by train. One day I happened to meet him travelling on the train on a special occasion that was not work-related: he was going to pick up an honour awarded by the Queen. Yet as he was paying, he was cheerfully travelling in standard class.
Jonathan: My concern is with space; I don’t have problems with passengers – one can get iritating people in first class (usually shouting into mobile ‘phones, sometimes with sensitive information). I take your point about comparing advance first with walk-on standard fares, but there have been odd occasions when the difference between advance first and advance standard has been virtually non-existent. On odd occasions, I have managed to travel first class from Hull to London for just over £30. On your last point, one of our Vice-Chancellors (Sir William Taylor) could always be found in standard class when travelling to London.
While forcing all politicians to travel ‘cattle class’ might have a beneficial reduction in the number of sanctimonious admonishments towards the public for not all abandoning their cars I’m not sure how practical or cost effective it really would be.
Now while divine intervention, or Lord Norton’s planning, might allow him to get a table seat in many years of commuting from London Waterloo I frequently couldn’t get a seat let alone a table and had to stand for some/part or most of the way to Salisbury. A 3-4hr (well 5 or 6 depending on delays, repairs or diversions) productive journey working at a table could easily be serious irritant and nothing done standing on sore feet. Wasting politicians time is wasting our money though the anti-politics mood probably doesn’t allow common sense a chance. (Not that I think they should use 1st if perfectly good table seats are there on 2nd but on a choice between standing -v- sitting and working in 1st I’d rather they did the latter)
Wolfie: Seriously look up the difference between fixed costs and variable costs. The Lords could go on holiday for a year and much of the costs would still be incurred.
Croft: I admit I am generalising on the basis of my knowledge of particular inter-city travelling. There may be a case for some variation in what is permitted, though the more exceptions one builds in the more it goes against my preference for simplicity. Perhaps it could be left to our good sense; as long as the figures are published, then one has transparency. Mind you, I suppose that effectively is the present position.
Many businesses operate a distance/time based system. Flights over ‘X’ hrs are allowed to be business class otherwise people have to fly the cheapest way.
Lord Norton, Jonathan is surely right that more senior people usually do have the privilege of travelling first class as part of the package. Since no-one’s paying us to do what we do the least I want is to travel in some reasonable comnfort. If I use my fantastic bargain senior citizen’s railcard, as over half of peers can do, the special deals on first class travel mean I can travel cheaper first class than standard fare regular if I book ahead. And I do therefore alwasy travel first class except on thoise little cross-country trains where first calss doesn’t exist. Although I have to confess that since my husband always travels with me (he’s my equerry you know), I usually drive down to London from home; I have never got organised enough to avoid having to transport large quanitities of food and clothing back and forth.
“It used to be the case that peers received no allowances. That was in the days when members were wealthy. Allowances were introduced to ensure that it was possible for those who”
I really can not expect everybody to arrive at Westminster in the way that I do, even with a folding push bike.
I do take Lord Norton’s point that Allowances were introduced for the poorer member. That may have been before the disavowal of the compulsory cooperatives worldwide in 1990 which changed socialist thinking on so many things.
There are now sufficient middle class (when did you last hear that term, or working class?)members in either place, to anticipate a modicum of attendance without any allowance payment at all, as I have suggested, even on the Labour side/left.
It would put the money grubber off, but not dedicated service to the community. I would be the last to deny that the Old Guard who worked without allowance, did NOT do sterling work, without them.
I do think that there are sufficient Lab/Lib Dem dedicatees, to do similar work without allowance or fee, AND there would be fewer in total!
It needs to be said that there were a few Old Guard(!)who also needed the money to get there at all, who were also grateful for the dosh.
I seem to recall that the Noble lord Norton was a member of the late Gwynneth Dunwoody’s
Transport committee,(Bless ‘er departed soul,and it) but like all quizzes I am probably wrong!
This was a committee of which NO member of a random poll of it, one fine morning, had walked more than fifty metres to get to his/her chair in the commons committee room!
Gareth Howell: Yes, completely wrong. Since I was never a member of the Commons I was never a member of the Transport select committee.
All these Lords and Ladies, all these intelligent minds and great wisdom and we cannot even work out a deal with the rail companies.
I`m sure one of Lord Sugar`s apprentices could fix this.
http://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets/?
Business Accounts
“However, the good news is that over 350 businesses bookings via thetrainline save an average of 43% compared to buying their rail ticket at the station – and you can join them.
Whether you’re a company, government department, school, university or a club, thetrainline offers business travellers some extra features that allow you to control and monitor your rail spend.”
I don’t know how TheTrainLine get away with still advertising that claim. I know they’ve been reported to the ASA before over it. They are comparing the cost of buying an advance ticket online with buying a ticket on the day at the station. If you can get to the station, you can buy exactly the same ticket as on the website.
What’s more, TheTrainLine add extra fees even if you collect the ticket from a machine at the station yourself, plus a fee for credit/debit card that can’t be avoided. The result is that a ticket from TheTrainLine actually costs more than a ticket from from booking office. Much better value is to buy tickets from one of the train operators’ websites, which don’t charge the fees (and sell tickets for all operators, not just their own services).
If you’ll excuse a bit of a plug, I’ve explained it in more detail here:
http://jonathan.rawle.org/2007/12/31/how-to-avoid-thetrainline-fees/
That applies to personal use of TheTrainLine, but the fees per ticket I heard quoted for business customers sound pricey too. It depends whether any time saving and accounting facilities they provide make it worth using their business service rather than ordering tickets via a TOC’s public website.
Any scope for a parliamentary question on the issue of online rail ticketing?
Jonathan: I take your point. I always book via the operating company (ususally East Coast or Hull Trains; the former has an additional discount for online booking). On a PQ, what would you suggest should be asked?
PQ? With rail ticketing, where to start? On online ticketing specifically, it would be good to know if the government are aware that the retailer that accounts for a fifth of all rail ticket sales is advertising huge discount when in reality consumers pay more than they would if they just went to the station.
An alternative would be the threat to ticket offices (at least in the form of reduced hours) by an online service that actually charges more for tickets.
Not sure if either of those is permissible, though.
I have not been commenting during this term. That has included silence on Home Education which is a subject about which I have many things to say. However, here I cannot resist.
Clearly, Lords needs its own class of travel.
The British Museum should take a number of the crates it uses for artifacts of value to the national patrimony. These can be equipped with cushions by the House itself. In addition there can be pressurized crates for air travel. These will be the NOBLE AND ARISTOCRATIC FREIGHT CLASS units for which the Parliament can pay freight. Those wishing to travel in some other manner would be seated (if no more valuable commoner wanted the seat) at their own expense minus this rate. Economy simply must be prioritized. The title of the class will preserve the full dignity of the Noble Lords.
I am fed up with this nonsensical social stratification !! Are we being expected to doff our caps at our elders and betters just because they are in the Lords ?? Dream on…
I would have more respect for people who think they are equal to the other people travelling on the trains, than idiots like Nicholas Winterton.
There you go, a couple of hours and Jonathon is sorting out the train fares for the Lords, no debates, committees or inquiries.
If we accept the standard {on the day rate} is going to be used then a canny Lord booking in advance could go first class after all. So that`s going to be a sticking point now…Which rate will IPSA use ?
There`s alway`s these :
http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery_images/0809/0000/0077/img_1239_edited1_mid.jpg
I will get a receipt won`t I ?
http://www.ccs-rochford.co.uk/bits/LN.jpg
Carl. H: Brilliant!
“Yes, completely wrong. Since I was never a member of the Commons I”
Ah of course local authority, a few years after me. At least elected to something!
I’m good at being wrong. It makes people feel good to be right, as long as it is not Chemistry.
Gareth Howell: No, never elected to a local authority either.
LN I am not going to do any more of B*ut*y quizes Milord.
See how confusing they are!
Content is King!
Wolfie: Actually, your comment rather makes my point. You clearly haven’t taken on board what I (and Jonathan, for that matter) have written. According to your calculations, each peer costs £2,200 a day. Now let’s look at the figures. As the link you provide shows, the total cost of the House in 2008-09 was £103.9m. It is worth noting that, of this, the cost of maintaining ‘the heritage and integrity of the House’s buildings and collections’ (which presumably would need maintaining regardless of the existence of the Lords) was £33.5m. The cost of making the House and its works accessible to the public was £5.6m. Now, excluding disqualified members such as the law lords, there are just under 720 peers. (However, as you refer to every peer, then the number is 735.) Whether one takes the total number of days in a year or one goes solely with the number of sitting days each session, it is still impossible to come up with the figure you produce.
Cost of the House of Lords (2008-09): £103.9m. Cost of the House of Lords according to your figures (£2,200 x number of peers x number of days in a year): almost £600m.
If the House could be closed down entirely except for the state opening of parliament, (to make the monarchists happy for one day a year, like they do with the Mitchell agreement for the Union of Ireland+UK one day a year)
then it could be run very effectively as a museum with Madame Tussaud’s playing a leading role in providing effigies of say Geoffrey Lord Howe, or Lord Hylton, or the saited Lord Heseltine, in typical pose, in their places in the chamber.
Foreigners would love it and it would mint money. Perhaps this is what Wolfie is getting at, that museums do make money and yet this particular one is not doing any such thing.
I mean why don’t people come up with sensible suggestions like this more often?
So why say that 720 lords turn up each day?
Are we paying them when they don’t turn up? If so plod would be very interested. Name some names.
According to the Lords, 400 turn up each day on average. [Quite why we don’t see 400 in the chamber is a question you can answer. Tell us a day when they do. If you think they are in comittees, tell us the date, and I’ll put an FOI request in. The last time I was challenged on this, there was about 10 in committees and from the TV pictures, about 50 in the chamber. Where are the other 340 who signed in?]
You are also assuming that there is no other use for the building. Why is that? Ah lowering the cost per member.
You argument is very odd. It’s probably a bit like a Lord renting a property saying that because someone has to pay the rent/mortgage, its not real money. It shouldn’t be included in their expenses figure.
There is no reason to remove the cost of running your ‘office’ from the cost to the rest of us.
The basic statistics for the year covered in this report illustrate the scale of the work that
the House has undertaken in 2008/09. The House sat for 147 days – some 1008 hours
spread over 36 weeks, with an average sitting time of 6.5 hours per day. Over half the
time of the House, 62%, was spent scrutinising legislation and, in addition, the Grand
Committee also spent 149 hours discussing bills. In all, 6620 amendments were tabled
and 2212 amendments made. 54 debates were held on general matters, 18 on Select
Committee reports and 56 Questions for Short Debate were considered. In addition,
four questions were answered orally each day, and nearly 5000 Written Questions were
answered. 142 Select Committee reports were published in 2008/09.
Care to analysis this lettle set of metrics and put a cost on some of the following
1. How much do you cost a minute?
2. How much do you cost per succesful amendment?
3. How much does the archaic language that spins out speeches and makes them longer than is necessary costs the rest of us?
It’s time for you as Lords to get real and realise that the party is over. You are costing us vast sums of money.
To put it in context, a person on minimum wage in this country pays 2,000 pounds in tax. Given you’re costing 2,200 pounds a day when you turn up, its takes a lot of peasants to support one Lord. Why should they have to work for a year to keep you going for a day?
ie. Why not take lots of peasants out of the tax net completely, by abolising the Lords. It gives more value.
Wolfgang: Even the software does not seem impressed by what you write. I found your comment in the Spam section.
Not only do you not appear to have read what I and others have written – as your comments again show – but you now don’t even appear to have read what you have written! My response was based on the very words that you used.
You fail to demonstrate any understanding of the nature of the institution. Let us take your comment:
“It’s probably a bit like a Lord renting a property saying that because someone has to pay the rent/mortgage, its not real money. It shouldn’t be included in their expenses figure.”
Well, I suppose it may be comparable if the person in question owns a World Heritage site, Grade 1*, which has nearly 1 million visitors a year, and is responsible for maintaining the site and providing some facilities for the visitors and would probably have to do that regardless of whether you were renting the property or not.
It’s difficult to know where to begin with your other points, or rather which of my earlier points to repeat which you either haven’t read or haven’t understood. One doesn’t have to be in the chamber throughout a day’s sitting. On days I am at Westminster, I will get in about 8.00 a.m. and leave about 10.00 p.m. and most of that time will be spent in my office and not in the chamber. As mentioned in an earlier post of mine, peers get an increasing amount of mail. Given that we don’t have scope for full-time secretaries, many of us have to act as our own secretaries. We also get requests for meetings: a good deal of my time is taking up with such meetings. I also spend more time in committee each week than I do in the chamber. I fear FOI requests will not produce the figures for the number of peers working in their offices at any one time. All FOI requests will generally produce is information that is already on the public record. (Attendance at committees is recorded and published.) In terms of peers in the chamber, almost half the daily attendance can be seen in the chamber at Question Time. As for amendments, it is not really sensible to try to put a cost on them without taking into account substance. One major amendment may be worth twenty minor ones, and indeed one amendment on a fundamental issue may justify the whole cost of the House.
Far from costing ‘vast’ sums of money, the House is highly efficient and compares well with the other House.
I hardly think that saying you are good because the commons spend more is justication for your excessive spending.
2007/2008 yopu cost us over 2,200 a day.
The fact that you choose to sit in an expensive location, because it makes a convinient club.
It’s the same logic that you use when you think you can justify first class travel at other’s expenses.
The same logic applies when Lords get caught on camera offering changing the law for cash.
Wasn’t your justification for them not being prosecuted that they wouldn’t have got away with it?
If you aren’t abolished, why don’t we axe your numbers down to 100, and say put you in an office block in Birmingham. It would reduce the transport costs (And accomodation).
As for what to do with your chamber, why not just leave it to the Tourists? The queen has shown how to raise considerable amounts of cash by running tours.
When I work, I am not reimbursed for any travel expenses I incur when I commute between my home and my office. I must pay that out of my pocket, or salary. My home is not subsidized by my employer, again I must pay that myself. I think that it should be the same for all people in parliament. You CHOOSE to have this career, therefore YOU should pay for your living expenses yourself. Your second home should not be paid for with tax payers money and neither should your flights or train tickets. It’s your job, therefore you should pay for it out of your own salary and tax money should not be used! I resent having to pay two sets of commuting costs, yours and mine!
Sue: I presume, though, that you are actually paid a salary for the job that you do? Being a peer is not a salaried post – there is no salary, so it would be difficult to pay travel costs out of a non-existent salary.
Sue: the norm is not to be paid for travel between home and your normal place of work, but to be reimbursed for other travel. If you were required to travel to another city for your work a couple of times a week, you’d receive travel expenses.
As Lord Norton points out, the Lords are unsalaried. As for MPs, they necessarily have to work in two places, so it’s only right they should be reimbursed. You could argue they receive a high enough salary and know they need to travel before taking the job, but that would mean only better-off people wanting to become an MP. It would also disadvantage MPs representing constituencies further from Westminster.
It’s only right that reimbursement for travel is available for MPs and peers. What’s wrong is the sizeable minority who make excessive claims.
Lord Norton: I’m doing a blog piece for Lord Tyler on the role of an elected house. The arrival of a House of Lords is attributed to the reign of Edward III. Do you know the date it arrived or when it actually became recognizable as a separate house as we know it?
While I’ll trust to Lord Norton’s remarks the thing that seems most obvious in the early parliaments (somewhat before the time you discuss) is just how arbitrary what constituted a parliament and what didn’t. There are a whole slew of peerage claims made and won or lost on which summons were to parliaments and which to ‘councils’ with the king the difference being frequently impossible to distinguish.
Oh but on the point at hand the parliament website gives the date as separate houses as 1341.
Senex: The origins of the Lords are to be found in the king’s court, the Curia Regis, which predates the summoning in the thirteenth century of knights and burgesses and which resulted in what we recognise as Parliament. Parliament grew in importance, not least under Edward I, who held his first ‘general Parliament’ in 1275. At various points in the fourteenth century, the knights and burgesses met separately from the churchmen and nobles, and so there developed the separation of the two chambers. As John Field records in ‘The Story of Parliament’: ‘By 1332, the Commons had established a separate identity and place of meeting’, p. 54.
LN: Thanks for that! It would be nice to see a detailed time lined hierarchy with hyperlinks that extends from earlier than the Curia Regis as a lot of this information is still locked up in books. It would be a nice project for the parliament site webmasters; can you make it happen?
Wolfie: Not really addressing any of the points I raised. If we did move out, the costs of maintaining the historic building would remain (as you implicitly concede). Your logic is tortured, since if I didn’t turn up this wouldn’t save £2.000 a day. Would it?
LN,
Perhaps my fellow lupine commenter thinks the Peers could stay on at a reduced per diem as custodial and janitorial contractors? That would help keep up the building I suppose…