Snouts in the trough

This image from the northern Ireland Department of Agriculture & Rural Development shows MPs being paid their expenses claims.

The story's been shunted off the front pages by endless speculative pap about what's going on in the Labour party, but it's a genuine scandal. Much of the coverage has focused on individually outrageous items like the £1,600 window cleaning bill from Barbara Follett for 2003/4. Over two years she also claimed nearly £4,000 of telephone bills, more than £8,000 for security, and £4,819 for utilities, for using a flat in her husband's name as her second home.

But the biggest scandal so far is that government ministers - in a Labour government, a government that was going to be whiter than white and the servant of the people - were nominating their taxpayer-funded grace and favour residences as their first homes, and claiming expenses for their so called second homes, the only ones they owned. Ministers seem only to have asked themselves whether this was within the rules. But it was clearly a moral scandal.

There should be no second home allowance at all when an MP's constituency is within commuting distance, as is the Stevenage constituency of the rich and hypocritical Mrs Follett, who apparently is the equalities minister. She is just one of the first out of the starting blocks. There will be others playing the same game.

If there is to continue to be some sort of provision for a second home, an MP's first home should always be deemed to be in the constituency they represent. If they then need an additional base in London - as most will - Parliament should make available suitable properties to live in rent free, or an amount equivalent to the rent on them.

This would turn the present system on it head. As The Times reports -

The use of the allowance to pay off mortgages has been a boon for many MPs. According to the documents, David Cameron, the Tory leader, was claiming £1,742 a month in mortgage payments in 2006; George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, was claiming £1,560; and William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, £1,200.

There seem to be few checks on whether mortgage payments fairly reflected the initial purchase price of the property. Tony Blair claimed on a £90,000 mortgage for his constituency property. However, his wife said in her recent autobiography it had cost only about £30,000, although a similar amount was spent on refurbishment. It is not clear why the mortgage is larger than the purchase price of the house.

Co-habiting MPs should only qualify for one allowance. There are regular prosecutions of people who claim housing benefit fraudulently by concealing the existence of a resident partner. The rules which MPs have put in place for other people should apply to them too.

Commentators feel obliged to stress that these MPs haven't broken any rules. This is absolutely not the point. We pay junior bureaucrats small amounts to follow rules, and even then we expect them to use some common sense sometimes. MPs are expected to judge political and moral issues. These expenses claims morally stink. If MPs wallow in the stench under their noses, why should we take them seriously as guardians of taxpayers' money?

Congratulations to campaigner Heather Brooke. She runs a blog, and has space in The Sunday Times today to set out the background. She reminds us that the Speaker has sanctioned the expenditure at least £200,000 of taxpayers' money to stop the public from finding out how public money is spent. "Even now, we must wait until the Autumn for a full breakdown of individual claims and receipts for all MPs’ allowances." Do read her well written potted history of the scandalous cover-up campaign so far.

We can be sure, as she says, that this is the tip of the iceberg. This instalment covers just the second home allowance, and just a few MPs.

Incidentally, haven't Conservative MPs favouring secrecy noticed that their leader spoke recently in favour of Accountable Transparency for government spending? Agreed, that was for items over £25,000. But the principle is there. Accountable transparency is party policy. You probably voted for it when your party proposed it in the Commons.

To all MPs - if your expenses claims are giving you sleepless nights, blame yourselves. If immoral expenses claims cut short more political careers, good job.

Meanwhile this blog - and I hope others - will follow the gradual unveiling of the iceberg.