Over the past two years, the problems of parliamentary expenses have tended to be dominated by stories affecting the House of Commons. The Daily Telegraph was at the forefront of revealing claims made by MPs. However, The Sunday Times identified problems with peers’ expenses and this acted as a wake-up call to the House. Since then, the House has been addressing issues of expenses and conduct. Various bodies were established in order to make recommendations and in recent months we have seen the fruits of their activities.
Following a report from a committee chaired by former Archbishop Lord Eames, we now have a new Code of Conduct. When peers are sworn in, they not only take the oath but also now subscribe to the code. (That is why you see a peer, on introduction, signing two documents). The House has also appointed a Commissioner for Standards (former Chief Constable Paul Kernaghan) to investigate complaints against peers. He reports his findings to a Sub-Committee on Conduct, presently headed by the former head of MI6 Baroness Manningham-Buller and including former Lord Chancellor Lord Irving of Lairg. Its findings are published.
Various changes were proposed in the 2009-10 session by the House Committee to the financial provision for peers. In the new Parliament, following recommendations from an ad hoc grouped chaired by Lord Wakeham, and a report from the House Committee, the Leader of the House, Lord Strathclyde, proposed a new and simple system of expenses. This was agreed without a vote on 20 July. An amendment to provide that peers should continue to be entitled to first-class travel was rejected.
We no longer have different headings under which we can claim expenses. There is no overnight accommodation allowance – the main focus of controversy – for peers who live outside London. Instead, there is a single day rate to cover all expenses, including accommodation, secretarial support, research assistance, and daily subsistence. One can claim either the full rate of £300 or a reduced rate of £150, the latter designed for those who are not able to devote the full day to parliamentary work. One can also claim travel expenses for travelling to London – where this is done by public transport, one uses a travel card, so the payment is made direct by the House and can be monitored.
The introduction of the new scheme – which takes effect following the recess – was welcomed by the media, notably The Times. Its simplicity has been contrasted with the system operating now in the Commons. The regime in the Lords is straightforward to operate. It requires no substantial bureaucracy. The cost of the Fees Office in the Commons used to be approximately £2 million a year. The cost of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) is claimed to be over £6 million a year (though IPSA disputes the figure). The new scheme in the Lords is expected at worst to be cost-neutral and at best to cost less than the existing system.
The new scheme willl be monitored to see if it is working effectively, but it marks a significant break with past practice and is designed to minimise any opportunity for mis-use of public funds. I very much welcome it. The more the system has the merits of simplicity and transparency the better.
I see that Sir Ian Gilmore, the retiring president of the Royal College of Physicians, has endorsed the call made by Nicholas Green QC, the chairman of the Bar Council, to consider the decriminalisation of drug use. He believes that this could drastically cut crime and addicts’ health problems.
I thought I would set a somewhat different quiz question this week, perhaps providing an opportunity to win for readers who regularly watch debates in the Lords on the Parliament channel. 
