watervole | MP's expenses

I agree with paying for accomodation but not second homes where the property is in MPs names. It muddies the waters.

Majority of other businesses - hotels, or serviced apartments. Subistence allowance (£25 for dinner + £5 for incidentals at my place)

Trains or taxis.

I'd have no problem with MPs claiming on a similar commercial basis. I do have a problem with funding their capital gains.

I'm only a little worried, when I think that this started because of the press panic about their pay rises. So they froze their pay and started raiding the petty cash.

Now they've frozen the petty cash I expect them to start giving themselves pay rises again. I hope they do, as the alternative is, as you say, that the newspapers (owned by rich men) will intimidate them into easily-bribed penury. I want them to be able to say no to dinner and favours from the rich looking to control our government.

This whole worked up scandal has anyway been a convenient distraction from the real money grab by the superrich financial sector. They make MPs look like the trivial workplace fiddlers they are.

Some points about this:

"Do we really want a culture where only the rich can afford to stand for parliament?" [...] "I want to live in a country where anyone can afford to stand for parliament."

The original idea of the "Deposit" (as in "XYZ lost their deposit" because they failed to poll more than 5% of the votes) was to ensure that only "serious candidates" would stand for Parliament.

In the Representation of the People Act 1918 it was set at £150 which (from what I can work out) is the equivalent of at least £5000 today and they had to get 12.5% of the vote.

The Deposit is now £500, but there have been calls to increase it, again, to stop "frivolous candidates".

"Where an MP may waste 2-3 hours a day commuting because he can't claim for London accommodation?"

The standard sitting hours of the House of Commons are:

2.30-10.30pm on Mondays and Tuesdays
11.30am-7.30pm on Wednesdays
10.30am-6.30pm on Thursdays
9.30am-3pm on sitting Fridays (Parliament will only sit on 13 Fridays in 2009)

But Parliament only sat for 165 days during the 2007-08 session!

Now, yes, some MPs do a lot of work outside Parliament even when it's sitting, but how many of them *really* need a second home in London when they're in the Capital for less than half the year?

"and where MPs don't have to seek handouts from industrial lobbies to supplement their income."

But how many ex-MPs (more than a few of whom now sit in the House of Lords) have lucrative "directorships" or "advisory" jobs with big businesses? Of course none of them passed legislation that would be of benefit to those self-same businesses whilst they were in Parliament. Did they...?

I'm not saying the old system wasn't flawed (it was). I'm not saying that the proposed changes aren't draconian (they are). But the way that some MPs are complaining after they've had a long, long ride on the Gravy Train is really not conducive to getting me to take their side.

Paying for a reasonable hotel in central London for 165 nights a year would cost a lot more than the mortgage on a second home. Do you want to punish MPs or save money for the taxpayer?

But what ought to happen is that MPs can claim mortgages on expenses, as at present, but the government owns the proportion of the house that is covered by the mortgage. When the MP ceases to be an MP, they can buy the government's share if they wish (at current market values), but otherwise have to sell the property.

I don't think running lie a business = punishing

The whole 2nd house thing really muddies the waters and I'd probably actually pay more to be shot of it.

Alternatives:-

Buy up a block of the Olympic Village. It's being built to be secure. Use this from 2013 as a king of giant MP campus.

Or, as a business would do, stop having your meetings in the most expensive place in the country. Get a swathe of land at somewhere with decent rail links (say, Birmingham airport), quietly build a few extra hotels and meeting rooms with good security, then announce you are moving. London property prices fall a bit, Brum ones go up (as in edinburgh when built scottish parliament)

Given I think the sky will fall in first, your proposal is a reqasonable alternative. But then, who establishses current market value? I feel a quango coming on...

The normal career path for an MP these days is University, followed by a few years working as a Parliamentry researcher. Then find a safe seat in a city or town they have visited before to start their election campaign.

If paying the interest on a second home is cheaper than paying rent, then I'd rather save the taxpayer's money.

ending at 10.30 twice a week (especially if it runs overtime) is terrible if you then have to spend another hour or more to get home.

MPs get paid a basic salary of £64,000 -- more than double the national median full-time salary. I don't think that is really so meagre as to exclude all but the rich.

Most people, including many in similarly important and responsible jobs, somehow manage to struggle by on rather less -- while doing, or paying for, their own gardening and cleaning.

I am entirely happy for MPs to be reimbursed reasonable expenses associated with having to overnight in London during Parliamentary session. But I think what they have been receiving up till now, and the nod-and-wink system that has administered it, goes well beyond what is considered reasonable in any other field of work.

Personally I would like them to use the standard HMRC pattern on what expense is allowable and what isn't, rather than drawing up another bunch of arbitary rules. That way there can be no question of unfair treatment.

I'm not sure about your 2-3 hours figure? AFAICS the proposed rules will continue to allow a London home for any MP more than an hour away. So 0-2 hours will be the commute time range.

That is an argument for changing the hours that Parliament sits, not for extending overnight accommodation. But MPs have persistently refused to shift these hours to earlier in the day.

Me too. But I insist that in that case the MP not be able to personally profit from the sale of such home. It's supposed to be an expense reimbursal, not a property speculation allowance.

I believe the proposed rule was a station within an hour of London. YOu have to add in time to get to and from the station at each end.

So if property prices fall, the MP should not lose from the fall either. You've got to cover it both ways.

Sure, absolutely. In my ideal the MP wouldn't own the house at all -- the state would. But failing that, the state covering the positive and negative risk is next best.

Ah, I thought it was door to door. If it's station to station, then yes, that would be too harsh.

I agree; cut all the allowances and pay them a reasonable salary instead.

I think we need to remember that a good MP will spend more than the usual working hours doing their job, indeed this can be most of their waking hours. This level of work tends to preclude also doing gardening and cleaning, so I don't think it is unreasonable to pay standard rates for such tasks.

I'd prefer the state to pay for such things and my MP put in the extra hours on state and constituant matters. What I don't want is the state to pay for those things and the MP not not to put in hours.

Hear hear. I have a good constituency MP and I'd like her to have the time to carry on being just that.

The current annual salary for an MP is £64,766. If you look at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/) calculator, it says that that's off the right-hand side of the scale.

I think that scale is for income after tax, not gross. But even so it puts them in the top 4% or so of incomes -- which most people would feel is "reasonable".

I have no problem with people being paid decently for working long hours, but if so it should be recognized in their contracted pay, not in some arcane agglomeration of perks and backhanders.

Garden maintenance is not an expense of the job -- it's an unrelated lifestyle choice, that people can choose to indulge to a greater or lesser extent according to preference. It's absurd that an MP with a garden to maintain is effectively getting paid more for doing the same job as another who doesn't have a garden.

Yet, in the unlikely event I was ever asked to be a MP, I would turn it down if I had no time to care for my garden and could not afford a gardener.

I already have a garden and it's an important source of relaxation - should I move to a house with no garden if I got elected? £10 a week would care for the basic mowing and weeding.

Re: Ending at 10:30

I agree and the Modernisation Committee looked into this in 2005 (see http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-02854.pdf) because running Parliament on "Gentlemen's Club" hours was putting off a lot of women from trying to become MPs.

Regarding second homes, certain senior MPs already get "Grace and Favour" homes (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5036540.stm). I think the idea of buying up part of the Olympic Village after 2012 and letting MPs stay there if they can't travel back home every night would be very sensible.

I have no objection to MPs getting reasonable remuneration and expenses, but when they are the ones making up the rules which govern what they can claim, you have to wonder about how impartial the system is. And it's become clear that it is seriously out of kilter at the moment.

(PS Re: the avatar. Yes, we know ;-) )

That's your own choice to make. Another person might complain it would leave them with no time to polish their vintage car collection -- should they be given paid assistance with that? Taking up any job involves reduction of one's outside-work activities.

Anyway, on an MP's salary of £64K you can easily afford to pay £10 per week. The gardens of teachers, doctors etc are equally important relaxation for them, but no-one's suggesting the state should subsidize those.

I think the idea of the government providing basic London housing for MPs, whether in the Olympic Village or some other government-owned and -maintained flats, and then subsidising their travels costs to and from constituencies sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan. If MPs wanted full homes (houses or townhouses) rather than a modest flat, they could jolly well pay for that themselves.

A resettlement fee of £64,000???!!! Who else in the UK gets £64,000 pounds when they get fired for cause "to help their transition to life out of [their old job]"? That's ridiculous!

As a sidebar, I think that employing one's spouse or other relatives at government expense is incredibly dodgy and gets no sympathy from me.

"[S]ome disgruntled MPs are already plotting to force a vote on the measures": I think they should consider their position carefully before doing that. Do they really want to go on record as feeling they deserve all sorts of ridiculous benefits that outrage their constituents? That would surely hand free ammunition to their opponents in the next election.

Finally, what the heck? Does the Independent employ no proofreaders? "MPs who retire tor lose their seats"? "he too will have to stop employed his wife"? "a lot of colleagues are very worked up about this,."? I would expect this from the Grauniad...

Employing a spouse can often be the cheapest option and has a lot of benefits when working hours are irregular.

I'm reminded of the deaf MP (Jack Ashley?) who used his wife to answer the phone. She repeated it to him silently and he lip read her. He could reply back so quickly that people often didn't realise she was there.

MPs often leave well-paid jobs to enter parliament. They can lose seats through no fault of their own. Even a good constituency MP can lose out when a party falls from favour. How do normal redundancy payments compare?

But employing relatives is also one of the oldest forms of corruption since the invention of government back in Sumeria or ancient China. The only qualification you need for a job under that scheme is to be related to someone--that's not a great standard to be setting for people getting government salaries.

As to leaving well-paid jobs... I'm sure that there are some who earn more than £65,000 a year, but if they were, it's surely no hardship to be forced to go back to that sort of life, eh? I just have trouble thinking of people earning that sort of money as being somehow hard-luck cases.

I would also dispute the idea that MPs lose seats through no fault of their own. It's not as if it were random, or a natural disaster. MPs lose their seat when the voters are no longer convinced they can do their job better than a contender. For every MP that gets loses their seat because their party is unpopular, there are 2 or 3 who hold their seat only because they wear the right colour rosette. Surely MPs should be incentivised to be *more* the servants of their constituents and less party drones?

But just because *some* people have employed family members (or friends) corruptly, doesn't mean that they're all corrupt does it?

I'm sure some wives/ husbands do work damned hard for their MP partners and to stop them from doing this just because of the bad apples would be very unfair.

I agree entirely that MPs' roles should go back to what they were originally intended to be, ie *representatives* of the views of the people who voted for them, rather than a sheep with a rosette who does whatever the Party Whips tell them to do.

That's why sites like http://www.theyworkforyou.com are so good because you can actually find out what your MP is up to, how they vote and how often they have gone against their Party's desires.

I feel quite indignant about the proposed ban on employing spouses, because we know one of the reasons for it is to protect the marriage. Spending more than half your life at the other end of the country isn't the ideal way to stay close, and some MPs end up with the secretary instead simply because they end up having more in common with them than their original partner. Of course no one should be allowed to pay their student offspring for doing nothing at all, but sacking a whole lot of spouses who are putting in good work in and outside normal hours to support a person and a cause they believe in strikes me as vindictive.

I hadn't thought about protecting marriage before, but it's a very valid point and one I agree with.

But just because *some* people have employed family members (or friends) corruptly, doesn't mean that they're all corrupt does it?

No, but hiring someone *because* they are a relative begs the question of why the job isn't going to someone based on their qualifications to *do the job*. Even if the relative is qualified, are they really the best person who could do the job for the salary, or do they have a special benefit based on who they are related to? Hiring someone who has a personal relationship with the "boss" is a dubious practice and puts them under a cloud of suspicion of favouritism and undue influence whether they exert it or not. It's simply very bad practice. I'm not familiar enough with the UK labour market to know what's common there, but hiring relatives, especially spouses, to work under you is banned in most major US corporations and definitely verboten in the government and military.

"do they have a special benefit based on who they are related to?"

Well, yes, very possibly they do, in that they may well be willing to work more hours (and for less pay) than someone else who is "qualified" to do the job *because* they are related to that person.

Regarding the UK labour market, remember that we're not talking about "major corporations" here, but a recent Court of Appeal case has determined that one partner can employ the other in a small business without it automatically being assumed by the Inland Revenue that they're only doing it to evade paying tax.

Personally I'm all for it. A large number of MPs have been taking the piss with expenses for years and they've only brought these rules on themselves. If they'd taken care of it internally it wouldn't have been needed.

And as for £64,000 not being a serious salery: Fuck off. That's well over double the national average. I'm a 36 year old degree educated IT worker and I've never earned 2/3 of that. I grew up on a West Midlands council estate and I'm forever stunned by people's lack of appreciation to the value of money.

And that's not taking into account the huge fat-cat pensions they get.

Don't get me started on the nepotism. Emplying a full time student son who lived miles away at University £33,000 a year? Farcical.

So screw the MPs. This is the clean up of a corrupt, rotten institution. I'm looking forward to lots of resignations as the rats dive overboard.

Well said. Although public sector staff are lucky enough to get ahouse in the first place. One bedroom flats in high rise tower blocks don't have gardens.

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