Tag Archive for MP’s expenses

Bad journalism is bad for democracy

Lord Soley

There was a sad example of poor quality journalism in the London Evening Standard yesterday. Written by Craig Woodhouse the headline is ‘Skiving’ MPs want another holiday’. There are a lot of things you can say about MP’s! not least about the failure to have a proper expenses system and some appalling examples of abuse.…

Expenses in the UK and other EU countries

Lord Soley

I agree with Lord Norton that the composition of the House is not relevant to the question of expenses. The following BBC link is useful to see what some other countries do. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7961849.stm I tend to favour something along the lines of the German system but if we can extend the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authoriyt…

Expenses

Lord Soley

As I feared and predicted in my last post (see below) David Laws MP has had to resign. I don’t want to add much more to what I have said below except that if we don’t get our expenses system onto a more logical and rational basis we will continue to have cases like this with all…

House of Lords Expenses

Lord Soley

I spoke yesterday on the report of the House Committee about the definition of a primary home for members of the House of Lords.  I really do not like the principle underlying the question of expenses for second homes. I would have preferred if there was a simple allowance set at a higher rate for…