Tag Archives: mps expenses

Iain Roberts

Innocent or guilty, there is no case for Laws to resign

By Iain Roberts | Sat 29th May 2010 - 6:35 pm

I’ve read, and listened to, a great deal of comment about David Laws today. Rumours are currently circulating that Laws has resigned from the Government. If so, I think it’s a great shame, a great injustice and a great disservice that’s been done to the British people.

Let’s take the absolute worst case scenario: that Laws knowingly broke the rules, saw himself and James Lundie as partners, chose not to admit it and took the money.

If that were the case – and Laws says it isn’t – the public purse will have been no worse off as a result …

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Stephen Tall

David Laws issues statement on his expenses and sexuality

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th May 2010 - 10:45 pm

David Laws has apologised, promised to pay back up to £40,000, and referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner after the Telegraph published expenses claims showing he rented a room from his partner.

The paper’s story shows that David:

  • David claimed between £700 and £950 a month between 2004 and 2007 to sub-let a room in a flat in Kennington, south London, owned by his partner who was also registered as living at the property;
  • from 2007, David then began claiming of £920 a month to rent the second bedroom from a new house bought by his partner,

…

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Mark Pack

Nadine Dorries: expense claims questioned in Sunday Times

By Mark Pack | Sun 9th May 2010 - 8:50 am

Welcome shortly to the new Parliament, where not everything has changed:

NADINE DORRIES, the Conservative MP, faces the first expenses complaint of the new parliament after a row about a £10,000 claim she paid to a friend’s company.

Her former Commons researcher, Peter Hand, is writing to John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, questioning whether the claim can be justified.

The complaint will undermine hopes that the expenses controversy can be consigned to the last parliament.

Dorries, who last week retained her mid-Bedfordshire seat, claimed the money for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, and consultancy services, but

…

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Stephen Tall

Torygraph smears Clegg: is this the best the rightwing press can do?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 21st April 2010 - 11:35 pm

Tomorrow’s Daily Torygraph has the absolutely D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G story that before Nick Clegg became Lib Dem leader he received donations from donors which he declared in the MPs’ register of interests in order to pay a researcher on his staff. Shock, horror etc.

The story is here. It shows that three Lib Dem donors, Ian Wright, Neil Sherlock and Michael Young – all of them registered Lib Dem donors – paid £250 each per month directly into Nick’s personal bank account. The figures were contained in personal bank statements submitted by Nick to the House of Commons. It was officially declared …

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Posted in General Election and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 46 Comments
Stephen Tall

Jo Swinson target of anonymous smear campaign

By Stephen Tall | Mon 12th April 2010 - 6:50 pm

This how today’s Sun reports the story:

A LIB-DEM MP has called in cops after an anonymous smear campaign was launched against her. Trouble-makers claiming to represent the East Dunbartonshire Taxpayers’ Alliance have sent letters to hundreds of voters across the region blackening the name of Jo Swinson, who is standing again on May 6. …

Ms Swinson said: “I’ve reported it to the police and they are investigating because the anonymous nature of this makes it illegal. It is clearly designed to damage my chances but I think a lot of people have seen through it.”

She saddedd : “This is

…

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Mark Pack

Margaret Moran makes £177,000 profit on tax-payer funded house

By Mark Pack | Sat 10th April 2010 - 5:20 pm

MPs’ expenses – the scandal that just keeps on giving:

MPs’ expenses: Margaret Moran sells taxpayer-funded Luton home for £177,000 profit

The MP for Luton South, who was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party over the expenses and lobbying scandals, bought the semi-detached property for £72,995.

She “flipped” her second home designation to the house for just one year but in that time used £22,341 of public money on it, which included the installation of a new central heating system and bathroom, a complete overhaul of the garden and the redecoration of several rooms…

Her three-bedroom house is now being sold for £250,000, making

…

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Helen Duffett

New MPs’ expenses rules published – the end of second homes and first class travel

By Helen Duffett | Mon 29th March 2010 - 3:04 pm

New rules published today by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority mean that MPs will no longer be able to profit from taxpayer-funded second homes, nor claim for gardening, cleaning or first-class travel.*

However, the scheme has stopped short of a ban on MPs employing family members. Instead, no more than one “connected party” (i.e. close family member, spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner) may work for each MP, within approved salary and job description guidelines.

Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, Chair of the IPSA said,

No longer will MPs benefit from a slack allowances system. This system brings MPs’ expenses into line with those in most other areas of life. Expenses will be reimbursed only for legitimate costs, backed up by receipts.

There will be complete transparency, so that members of the public will see, in detail, expenses claimed by MPs. The rules will be backed up with tough new measures and abuse of the system will not be tolerated.

The new system is fair, workable and transparent. It will enable MPs to carry out the job we ask them to do and will provide reassurance and value for money to the tax-paying public.

Key components include:

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Mark Pack

Conservative MP David Curry repays £28,000 in expenses

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th March 2010 - 6:50 pm

The Guardian had the story this week about the former chair of the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee (yes, the former chair of the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee):

Tory MP David Curry was today ordered to repay £28,000 and issue an apology after the Commons standards and privileges committee ruled that he had broken rules relating to parliamentary expenses.

The findings are particularly embarrassing because Curry was chairman of the committee until he stood down in November last year after he called for an investigation into the expenses allegations made against him.

He was ordered to repay £28,000

…

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Mark Pack

Conservative MP Jacqui Lait loses libel hearing over expenses

By Mark Pack | Thu 25th March 2010 - 9:00 pm

The Evening Standard reports:

The Evening Standard has won a significant victory in a High Court libel battle brought by a Conservative MP.

Jacqui Lait, MP for Beckenham, had sued over an article headlined “Women MPs will be put off by Kelly reforms”.

Mr Justice Eady today struck out elements of her claim and ordered her to pay £10,400 legal costs.

The November 2009 article correctly pointed out Ms Lait had claimed “large sums” to travel to her family home in Sussex even though her constituency home is only 11 miles from Westminster…

The judge said it was “unreal to suggest that readers of

…

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Mark Pack

Kitty Ussher: unrepentant over expenses

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th March 2010 - 12:50 pm

By way of introduction, a sample of what Kitty Ussher (Labour MP for Burnley) had done:

Kitty Ussher used allowances for £20,000 house make-over
The records reveal that Miss Ussher, the MP for Burnley, contacted the Commons fees office within 12 months of being elected, with a detailed programme of work for the property she had already lived in for five years.

Kitty Ussher sacked from government over her claims
Move comes in the face of evidence that Treasury minister ‘flipped’ her homes to avoid paying capital gains tax.

So, when interviewed by Channel 4, what did she say?

Q. Is there anything you did that you feel you ought to say sorry for? The choices you made? The decisions you made?

A. No. Because I haven’t done anything that anybody else in my position wouldn’t be perfectly able and valid to do.

The exchange comes around 8 minutes 15 seconds in to this report:

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Iain Roberts

Four Lib Dem MPs censured over second home allowances

By Iain Roberts | Sat 20th March 2010 - 10:20 am

Lib Dem MPs Richard Younger-Ross, John Barrett, Sandra Gidley and Paul Holmes have been ordered to apologise and repay a total £16,500 in the latest twist of the long-running expenses saga.

The four were among a larger number of MPs who were paid a lump sum in return for paying higher rent at the Dolphin Square apartments near to parliament.  The MPs personally received the lump sum, whilst the taxpayer paid the higher rent.

Two of the MPs have been ordered to repay half the lump sum they received, the other two to repay a quarter.

Overall, Lib Dem MPs have had a …

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Mark Pack

Questions grow over Labour MP Diane Johnson’s expenses

By Mark Pack | Thu 18th March 2010 - 2:20 pm

A few days ago Dizzy Thinks spotted an oddity in the expense claims of Hull North Labour MP Diana Johnson:

At the end of the detailed, albeit censored claims, provided on the Parliamentary website, is an invoice to the tune of £1,654 for “delivery of a leaflet in Hull North Constituency during September and October 2007”.

Looks legit doesn’t it? However there’s is an oddity about it. You see, there appears to be no such company as J W Shipley Distribution, either solvent or dissolved, listed on Companies House. An advanced search for all companies with “Shipley” also throws up

…

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Mark Pack

Will £66,000 expenses claim sink Dawn Butler?

By Mark Pack | Tue 16th March 2010 - 8:07 pm

So asks Ross Lydall over in the Evening Standard:

How many voters are ready to turn against their MP over the expenses scandal? A fascinating battle in a hotly-contested north London constituency looks set to provide some answers.

On one side is Labour whip Dawn Butler. On the other is Lib-Dem MP Sarah Teather. They have been thrown together in a new seat as a result of boundary changes, and there is now a fight to the death to see which one returns to Westminster after the election to represent Brent Central…

What Ms Teather, described as a “saint” by one newspaper

…

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Mark Pack

Good news, bad news: Nicholas Soames MP

By Mark Pack | Thu 4th March 2010 - 10:20 am

Good news: the Conservative MP for Mid-Sussex has more than halved the number of outside jobs he does in addition to being an MP.

Bad news: he’s still doing three, paying over £350,000 per year in total.

(Back in December 2005, he had seven outside jobs, but payment for them did not have to be disclosed.)

Certainly can’t be said the jobs are badly paid. They bring in for him over £220,000 which, allowing for tax, means a gross pay of over £350,000 (as his MP salary will have taken up tax allowances and put him in in the top tax band).

He gets …

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Mark Pack

What will the impact be of MPs’ expenses on turnout?

By Mark Pack | Thu 18th February 2010 - 10:54 pm

From one of the latest YouGov polls:

Does the expenses scandal…
Makes me more likely to vote at the coming election, to express my anger at the way some politicians have behaved 14%<
Makes me more likely NOT to vote, because politicians are much the same, and I don’t trust any of them any longer 12%
Net: +2%
Make no difference, I will vote anyway 64%
Make no difference, I will NOT vote anyway 5%
Don’t know 5%

The usual caveats apply that this is only one poll and also that people are often more likely to give what is seen as a socially acceptable answer than to …

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Iain Roberts

MPs’ expenses: Clegg’s proposal gains ground

By Iain Roberts | Tue 16th February 2010 - 8:41 am

As reported in the press last May:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, called for MPs to be banned from making a profit from selling second homes which they bought using their Commons allowances.

He will prevent Liberal Democrat MPs making money out of selling such a property after having their mortgage interest paid by the taxpayer – and wants the rule extended to all MPs. Any profits from the sale of a property would be handed back to the Exchequer.

And today:

The head of the new authority tasked with overhauling MPs’ expenses has said profits made on taxpayer-funded second

…

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Iain Roberts

Policing expenses a snip at £10,000 per MP

By Iain Roberts | Thu 11th February 2010 - 7:28 am

Radio 4’s Today Programme has revealed the cost of the new parliamentary body to police MPs’ expenses: around £6.5 million a year, with 80 staff and a boss pulling in £100k.

Nice work if you can get it, but surely it raises serious questions about the new system.

The total amount current and former MPs are being asked to repay, covering claims over several years, is a touch over a million pounds.

That means the new cost of checking those expenses and ruling whether they’re legitimate is many times higher than the amount the public purse was previously losing where …

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Posted in Op-eds | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

What happened to the 19 Conservative MPs who voted to keep MPs’ expenses secret?

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th February 2010 - 8:20 am

I’ve commented on the fate of the 21 Conservative MPs who voted against reform of Parliamentary expenses (in brief: nearly all of them have since had to pay back money or had an expenses scandal come to light).

That was one of two key votes where Parliament had had the chance to clean up its act before media stories and public outcry forced it to do so. The other was about whether or not MPs’ expenses should be susceptible to Freedom of Information requests. There was an attempt to change the law to keep them secret, via a Bill introduced …

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Mark Pack

MPs who opposed expenses reform: how did the three Labour MPs facing trial vote?

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th February 2010 - 7:07 pm

A footnote to my post about the subsequent expenses revelations regarding the 21 Conservative MPs who voted down expenses reform in 2008, before the Daily Telegraph revelations forced everyone’s hand. Of the three Labour MPs now facing criminal charges, two also voted against reform (David Chaytor and Elliot Morley) whilst the third, Jim Devine, abstained on the vote. Well there you go.

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Mark Pack

What happened to the 21 Conservative MPs who voted to block expenses reform in summer 2008?

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th February 2010 - 10:20 am

As I wrote previously about the voting down in the summer of 2008 of plans to reform MPs’ expenses:

The bulk of the blame for blocking the reforms must lie with the Labour Party as 146 of their MPs voted to block the reforms but given David Cameron’s strident recent comments, it’s striking to see that seven of his frontbenchers, and 21 MPs in total, voted to block reform when they had the chance. This was enough to see the measure defeated.

A year and a half on from those 21 voting against changing the expense rules, what do we now …

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Mark Pack

The most improbable MP expenses defence: my bank told me to do it

By Mark Pack | Fri 5th February 2010 - 10:29 pm

It’s a toughly contested field. But I think we have a clear winner in the “most improbable excuse for expenses claims” stakes.

Step forward David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend West.

He previously took to hiding in a hairdressers to avoid answering questions about his expense claims, he was one of the MPs who voted to block expense reform in the summer of 2008 and now he’s come out with this:

Southend Echo - Amess - Bank Told Me To Overclaim

…

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Stephen Tall

MPs’ Expenses Repayments: how the parties compare

By Stephen Tall | Fri 5th February 2010 - 12:55 pm

I’m very grateful to a pseudonymous Lib Dem commenter, Goupillon, on PoliticalBetting.com for emailing through to LDV his tables showing how the parties compare when it comes to the expenses repayments demanded of MPs by Sir Thomas Legg.

The tables which follow are based on data from the list of expenses
miscreants provided by the BBC.

Total expenses to be paid back based on party affiliation:

    Labour: £446,416.28
    Conservative: £449,821.83
    Lib Dem: £42,945.18
    Others: £38,575.96
    Total: £977,759.25

MPs per party who have been called on to pay back expenses:

(not including those who have successfully appealed against Sir Thomas Legg’s ruling in their individual cases)

    Labour: 180
    Conservative:

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 13 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lembit wins MPs’ expenses appeal, is now owed £40

By Stephen Tall | Thu 4th February 2010 - 6:25 pm

Last week it was Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne has won his appeal against repaying £18,000 of expenses. Now fellow Lib Dem Lembit Opik has also had his appeal against repaying hundreds of pounds in parliamentary expenses allowed by Sir Paul Kennedy, the judge brought in to arbitrate on disputed claims. The BBC reports:

Montgomeryshire MP Lembit Opik was ordered to pay back £900 he claimed for a mobile phone bill. Sir Thomas Legg, the retired civil servant auditing MPs’ expenses, said the Liberal Democrat MP should not have been able to claim for the phone bill. But Mr Opik won an appeal against the ruling.

Intriguingly, this leaves the taxpayer in debt to Lembit:

The MP, one of almost 80 MPs to challenge Sir Thomas, has actually repaid £195 in total, so is now technically owed £40 by the Commons authorities.

Now there’s an ethical dilemma for an MP just months away from seeking re-election.

Menawhile, here’s a brief clip of Lib Dem MP Norman Baker talking about the publication of Sir Thomas’s report.

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The Voice

Three Lib Dem MPs fighting Legg’s expenses judgement

By The Voice | Sun 31st January 2010 - 10:20 pm

Three Lib Dems are among the 70 MPs who lodged appeals after being told to pay back some of their taxpayer-funded Commons expenses by Sir Thomas Legg, reports today’s Telegraph:

At least 35 Labour MPs and former Labour MPs have appealed against Sir Thomas’s findings, as well as 30 Conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and two independents. Among them are MPs who made some of the highest-profile claims exposed by the Telegraph investigation, including £1,645 for a duck house.

Sir Thomas’s 30-page report is thought to identify more than 300 MPs — nearly half of those in Parliament — whom he found

…

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John Bridges

By-election news: Great start to the New Year

By John Bridges | Fri 29th January 2010 - 7:02 pm

There were two principal council elections held on the 28th January. The Lib Dems held one seat and gained one from the Tories. In the only Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC the Tories held the seat.

The Great Bowden and Arden Ward of Harborough District Council in Leicestershire saw this year’s first by-election gain, at the expense of the Conservatives. Tory attacks fell flat when faced with candidate Phil Knowles’ wide experience of local issues and hard-working reputation established during his previous …

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The Voice

Jeremy Browne wins expenses appeal – acted “openly and honestly”

By The Voice | Thu 28th January 2010 - 8:58 pm

The BBC has the story of how Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne has won his appeal against repaying £18,000 of expenses.

Taunton MP Jeremy Browne complained after auditor Sir Thomas Legg ruled he must repay the cash claimed for mortgage interest on his second home.

Sir Paul Kennedy, who was appointed to hear appeals, said he had acted “openly and honestly” when making his claim.

Mr Browne said he felt “relieved” and “vindicated”, but “not elated”.

He is the first of the 80 MPs who challenged Sir Thomas’s requests to repay money to make the results of his appeal public.

Labour’s Frank Cook, Frank

…

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The Voice

Ex-Tory MP pledges to back Lib Dem candidate in Eastbourne

By The Voice | Sat 23rd January 2010 - 3:45 pm

There’s good news for Lib Dem candidate Stephen Lloyd in his campaign to win the Tory seat of Eastbourne – one of his residents, a former Tory MP, has pledged to vote for Stephen declaring the Lib Dem “will prove to be a dedicated, open and hardworking member of parliament for the Eastbourne constituency”.

The Rye and Battle Observer has the story:

A FORMER Conservative MP and Eastbourne voter has publicly vowed not to vote for Tory Nigel Waterson at the forthcoming General election. Ernle Money, a Conservative MP for Ipswich in the 1970s who lives in Furness Road, said

…

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Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 15 January 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 15th January 2010 - 12:25 pm

Welcome, Daily Viewers, to January 15th – and a public engagement special.

There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick... on TwitpicA year ago today US Airways Flight 1549 made an emergency landing into New York’s Hudson River. Eyewitness Janis Krums took this famous photo of the plane (right) and immediately shared it with the internet via Twitter, thus proving the website could be used for so much more than telling the world what you had for breakfast. (The only twitpic photo that’s come close since then was of a fox on the London Underground, but I live in hope and carry a camera…)

And as Mark reminds us, today’s a very good day for having your say on MPs’ expenses.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

  • A vote for ‘None of the above’ is a vote for pusillanimity

    • Adam Bell at Decline of the Logos: from fence-sitting to barricading the streets.

  • Enquiries and the state of Brown’s trousers – a historical note

    • MKNE political information looks at public protest, 1812-style.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Engaging Stories

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Mark Pack

MPs’ expenses: have you sent in your views yet?

By Mark Pack | Fri 15th January 2010 - 10:20 am

As Helen has covered on The Voice, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is running a public consultation on MPs’ expenses. Comments on its proposals can be submitted until 11 February 2010.

A couple of people mentioned in comments to that post that the proposals are rather better than the media coverage made them fear, and reading through the IPSA’s proposals I’ve had the same reaction.

Even so, it is well worth responding to the consultation because the IPSA will very likely be receiving significant lobbying from some MPs to water down various proposals. Unless other MPs and the public lobby back, there is a risk of a lopsided impression being changed and important reforms being lost.

So here’s my response, which picks up on a couple of weak areas but otherwise backs the proposals:

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Posted in Parliament | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
Helen Duffett

Have your say on MPs’ expenses

By Helen Duffett | Fri 8th January 2010 - 11:50 am

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is running a public consultation on MPs’ expenses, to run from 7 January to 11 February 2010.

The IPSA was created by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, in response to last summer’s public outcry at MPs’ expenses and allowances claims under the existing scheme. The body is independent of Parliament, Government and political parties.

Respond online or in writing with your views on a new scheme for MPs’ expenses.

The topics it covers include:

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