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Posted: 18-02-2009 22:23 Post subject: MPs' Expenses

This has been around for a while, but now it seems to be getting serious:

Smith asked to explain expenses

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has said she will "answer any questions" Parliament's sleaze watchdog has about £116,000 in "second home" expenses.

Ms Smith named her sister's London home as her main residence and her family home in Redditch as her "second home".

She insists she has done nothing wrong and that she followed the rules.

But Standards Commissioner John Lyon has asked her to explain claims by her London neighbours she spent as little as two nights a week at that address.

On average, neighbours Dominic and Jessica Taplin say they believe Ms Smith spent three nights a week at the address, based on sightings of the police on duty in the street outside.

Mr Taplin said he wanted to get to the truth of the matter and has also written to the Commons fees office, which looks after MPs' expenses.

He told BBC News: "I think it's wrong that someone like the home secretary should be claiming something that doesn't appear to be true.

"I would hope that Jacqui Smith would tell the truth, which presumably can be backed up with police logs and she can say how many nights she spends in the house in London."

The couple initially contacted Conservative leader David Cameron by e-mail about their concerns, Tory sources have confirmed - prompting Labour claims their complaint is politically motivated.

Mr Cameron's office told the Taplins it was not a matter for them but suggested they might wish to contact a newspaper as this would be "in the public interest".

The couple then spoke to the Mail on Sunday, which ran a story on their allegations at the weekend, before making a complaint to the Standards Commissioner.

Mr Lyon has previously turned down two requests to investigate Ms Smith over her decision to designate her sister's house - where she stays when she is in London - as her main home, but his decision to formally accept this latest complaint could lead to a full investigation.

Jacqui Smith's decision to call her sister's home her main residence has enabled her to claim at least £116,000 in second home allowances on her constituency home in Redditch, Worcestershire, since becoming an MP.

Ms Smith has consistently denied any wrongdoing, insisting that she has written approval from the Commons fees office for her arrangements.

She told BBC News: "I followed the advice I was given and I have followed the rules," adding that she would "respond to any questions the independent commissioner asks me".

Sources close to the home secretary have told BBC News that she paid rent to her sister at a market rate and that her sister paid full tax on the income.

They add that Ms Smith does not simply rent one room and that her children come to stay at the London address, including over Christmas and the New Year.

Sources claim she spends the bulk of her time in London but had asked the police to maintain a "low profile" so the neighbours may not have realised she was in residence. Wink

The fees office had told her it was "irrelevant" to an allowance claim where her family lived - it was all about where she spent most of her time, they say.

Mr Lyon has asked Ms Smith to set out exactly how much time she spends at the address in south-east London.

Commenting on the affair on BBC Radio 5 Live, David Cameron said: "I think that what we need to know is what is her main home."

He added that it was necessary to establish whether Ms Smith's arrangement was "reasonable", saying: "I think the home secretary has some questions to be asked on that front."

Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, who campaigns for greater parliamentary accountability, welcomed Mr Lyon's decision to look into Ms Smith's allowances - and called for a tightening of the rules surrounding second home allowances.

"There is clearly an opportunity for MPs to designate their first and second homes in order to maximise financial advantage, which cannot be right."

He added: "Jacqui Smith says she's 'done nothing wrong', but that's not how the public see it."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7896783.stm

(The thread title is not party-specific, so feel free to chuck in all examples of parliamentary expense fiddling!)

Posted: 18-02-2009 22:47 Post subject:

The problem lies with the bizarre and antiquated system for MPs' expenses.

It *is* expensive to have a home in central London and one in a constituency, and it is entirely reasonable that MPs do not lose out as a result. Don't forget that payment for MPs was a great socialist rallying cry, and with reason.

Rather than allowing MPs to claim large amounts of cash in lieu of rent, assistants' salaries etc, it would seem far more sensible to:

(1) Provide MPs with grace and favour apartments, or have a commercial rent paid directly to the landlord concerned; and

(2) Give MPs an allowance for administrative staff but have those staff go through the usual procedures for civil service recruitment. (When I was at university there were various people in the Labour Club of which I was a member who had been lucky enough to have fantastic work experience/holiday jobs in Westminster and Brussels. Unfortunately, all of them had parents/relatives/family friends who had fixed up the jobs for them).

From what I can see Ms Smith's arrangement is entirely permissible under the current rules. If people have a problem with this the rules need to change. There is no sense in hanging people out to dry if they have followed the advice they've been given.

Posted: 19-02-2009 12:59 Post subject:

Yeah, Quake puts it in a nutshell there. Smith was acting within the existing rules, change them.

Regarding administrative staff, some may be doing a good job, some may be incompetent relatives holding down a sinecure. I can understand why a politician would want to have someone in political sympathy working with them, but theyshould have to go through a competency test equivalent to that for the civil service pay grade at which they are recruited.

Posted: 12-04-2009 21:14 Post subject:

Posted: 09-05-2009 10:43 Post subject:

This story has now grown: the story of the story:

Paper spent £150,000 to buy damning dossier
Search on for mole who leaked details of expenses / MPs concerned at release of their home addresses
By Michael Savage, Political correspondent
Saturday, 9 May 2009

On a quiet Wednesday afternoon in March three journalists from a national newspaper took a taxi from their offices in the House of Commons to a small city public relations firm.

They were following up on a phone call, from out of the blue, offering to put them in touch with a businessman who said he had access to explosive information on the vast expenses claimed by MPs. The businessman, they were told, was acting on behalf of a mole in the Parliamentary fees office, who had a disk containing the uncensored receipts of all 646 MPs, including spurious and outrageous claims from all parties. He wanted the information to be leaked, his PR agent said, because the public needed to know the truth.

It was a tantalising offer. During the 30-minute meeting with the businessman he said he could offer CD-Rom discs containing the complete scans of every MP's receipts, dating back five years. The receipts would include information about MPs' home addresses and where they bought their goods and services. He added that he had taken legal advice over the matter, and had been reassured that he was acting within the law and was not committing any criminal offense.

But it also became clear that besides the public interest the businessman had another more pressing and base motive: money. The price for the documents was £300,000, including £250,000 for the data, £50,000 for "analysing it" and a guarantee of complete legal indemnity. The reporters telephoned the paper's lawyers and editor who rejected the idea of paying anything for the disks and the meeting was terminated.

But others were not so picky. Eleven days later copies of Jacqui Smith's expense receipts were published in Sunday Express. They revealed that Ms Smith had used Commons expenses to reclaim the cost of two pornographic films watched by her husband as part of a £67 Virgin media bill. A handwritten receipt also showed that she had claimed for an 85p bath plug. They clearly had also met the businessman.

The Express revelations also prompted other papers to start investigating the source of the documents. One tabloid struck an initial deal to buy the receipts of a number of named high profile MPs for around £50,000 but the deal came unstuck when they saw the material – they didn't think it was sensational enough.

But The Daily Telegraph did not take that view and by the time they got into negotiations the price had dropped. The paper refuses to say how much it paid for the haul, or indeed whether it paid for the receipts at all. However it is believed the paper paid around £150,000 for the complete dossier.

Yesterday, MPs were bracing themselves for what one called a "couple of months of painful catharsis" as details of the expenses are slowly released by the newspaper. "There are a few people sitting nervously," said another. "The worst thing is the slow drip, drip of stories to come."

There was a growing chorus of backbenchers calling for the parliamentary authorities to "bite the bullet" and publish all the receipts now to spare them from spending the coming days wondering if they would be next in line to have their dirty linen, paid for by the nation, paraded in public.

Data protection has also become an issue. Several members of Parliament are deeply concerned that their personal information is now at risk as the Telegraph has the unredacted version of the receipts, with addresses and other personal details clearly visible. The information was due to be blacked out when the records were released in July.

The Commons authorities say that they have a "pretty good idea" of how the security of the receipts was compromised, but as for the identity of the mole who stole the information, little is known.

Suspicions are that the person who took the disk may have been an outside IT employee, working for the fees office under contract. The disk seems to have been duplicated without the knowledge of officials within the office. That could be a criminal offence and now the police have launched an investigation the story of the story is also likely to run and run.

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/paper-spent-163150000-to-buy-damning-dossier-1681808.html

Posted: 09-05-2009 18:10 Post subject:

I must say - I knew the expense system was arcane, but I had no idea that some of these things could be claimed for. How on earth can MPs claim for food and furniture, for example? Isn't that what their salaries are for?

Even stranger is the saga of Gordon Brown's cleaner. Six and a half grand in a year? Most cleaners of domestic properties pop in for a couple of hours a week - either he is very messy, astonishingly generous or... something odd is going on.

Posted: 09-05-2009 18:14 Post subject:

Posted: 09-05-2009 19:09 Post subject:

Posted: 10-05-2009 10:29 Post subject:

A plague on both your houses
The publication of detailed expenses claims of MPs has left politicians from all parties in the firing line. How did the culture of letting the taxpayer pick up the tab become so universal?
Jonathan Oliver, Richard Woods, Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Steven Swinford

"No one ever sets out to become an expenses fiddler,” confessed an MP in his late thirties. “It just sort of creeps up on you.”

The path to the moral low ground, he said, begins almost as soon as a new MP steps inside parliament. “When you are elected you are invited to a series of briefings by the Commons fees office,” he explained, speaking anonymously last week for fear of being ostra-cised by his fellow MPs.

“They are all about the different expenses: travel, office costs and, of course, the second home allowance. It is all very matter-of-fact, but what it does is plant in you the idea that there is all this money out there.

“For example, I had no idea you could claim back the cost of food. It seemed odd at first claiming for your weekly Tesco’s bill, but then you get used to it. Then the danger starts when you come to rely on it.”

Ministers and MPs have not just come to rely on it - they are milking it for all they can. Details revealed last week show they are claiming, at taxpayers’ expense, everything from tens of thousands of pounds for mortgages, rent, new kitchens and home furnishings to a few pounds for porn movies, pet food and a 5p carrier bag bought by a Scottish Labour MP.

Corrupt? Fraudulent? MPs say it is all within the rules - which they happened to make. Either way, the systematic abuse is a deeply corrosive canker at the heart of British democracy.

Another MP, a Tory and a former army officer, admitted the expenses culture had insidiously chipped away at his sense of right and wrong.

“When I was in the army I had got into the habit of scrupulously noting down the exact distances of the journeys I had taken while on duty,” he said. “I did the same when I first became an MP - until the fees office complained to me that I was burdening them with too much detail. After a while I just began guessing the mileage.”

The culture of greed is deliberately passed on to new MPs to keep the gravy train rolling along. A northern Labour MP explained: “Everyone gets it when they are a new boy in the House - the pat on the back and someone saying, ‘I hear you haven’t bought your place in London yet; you’ll be letting the side down’.

“You are then reminded of how you can charge stamp duty and legal fees on expenses and how your second home can become your second pension. When everyone is doing it, it takes courage to put on a hair shirt.”

All this largesse comes to MPs tax-free. While voters have faced stealth tax increases for years, MPs have received tens of thousands of pounds on top of their salaries without paying any extra tax - because they voted in 2003 to exempt their overnight expenses from the Revenue.

Disquiet over the system has been building ever since this newspaper brought a freedom of information case in 2005 to gain access to details of their claims. MPs fought long and hard to keep them secret.

The truth, however, will out. Last week someone with access to full details of their claims since 2004, including receipts, sold the information to The Daily Telegraph, reportedly for a six-figure sum.

The full scale of parliamentary avarice and absurdity hit the headlines on Friday. The expenses claims reveal that Gordon Brown paid his brother £6,577 in 26 months for “cleaning services” at his flat. Downing Street says the brothers shared a cleaner and Brown was reimbursing his brother for his portion of the costs.

The prime minister, who enjoys a grace and favour flat in Downing Street, also designates his family home in Scot-land as his “second home”, which means he has been able to get the taxpayer to foot the bill for a gardener and cleaner there and for various repairs and decorations.

Jack Straw, the justice secretary, claimed on his expenses more in council tax than he had actually paid on his “second home” in his Blackburn constituency. He apparently discovered the mistake when it became clear that MPs’ expenses were likely to be made public - and hurriedly repaid the money.

John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, claimed for the addition of mock Tudor beams to his home in Hull. He also got the public to pay for repairs to two of his lavatories. Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, was not satisfied with claiming £16,500 to buy a flat in London: he even tried to claim for a £19.99 bath-robe from Ikea.

Last week some MPs tried to blame the media for the furore, claiming it was a disgrace that private information had been sold and disclosed. The public are not fooled. Sir Fred Goodwin blew much more but the morality in question is little different. As the public learn just how deeply snouts are in the trough - from lowly backbenchers all the way up to cabinet members - they are outraged.

“They [MPs] are no different to the benefit cheats they regularly attack in word and print,” was one of hundreds of hostile comments made on the blog of Nick Robinson, the BBC political editor.

“Six grand for a cleaner while [Brown] has been taking the country to the cleaners? . . . Time to clean out your desk, little man,” wrote an infuriated voter on the website of a newspaper usually sympathetic to the prime minister.

etc...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6257122.ece

Posted: 10-05-2009 11:23 Post subject:

All the papers are getting their teeth into this story!

These scams are atrocious. Worse is the lack of remorse
The expenses racket shows politicians have lost their ethical bearings. It seems they no longer care what people think of them
Andrew Rawnsley The Observer, Sunday 10 May 2009

Under John Major, it was cash for questions. Under Tony Blair, it was cash for coronets. Under Gordon Brown, we reach the suitably bathetic nadir of cash for cleaners. And cash for lavatories. And cash for carpets. And cash for saunas. And cash for swimming pools. And cash for gardeners. And cash for barbecues. And cash for dog food. And cash for cushions. Silk ones, naturally, 17 of them in all to ease the repose of Keith Vaz. In the case of a Conservative MP with a constituency in the shires, it is cash for horse manure. Shocked

One MP wants cash for Kit Kats. A Scottish Labour MP confirms the stereotype of his race by claiming 5p for a carrier bag. Shocked

Well, he probably needed somewhere to stuff all his receipts. Wink

A Lib Dem takes cash for cosmetics. One male MP claims cash for tampons.

I would truly like to hear how buying tampons is an expense wholly, necessarily and exclusively related to the parliamentary duties of a male MP. The explanation must be fiendishly ingenious. Cool

etc....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/10/andrew-rawnsley-mps-expenses

Posted: 10-05-2009 11:51 Post subject:

The Indie too...!

More evidence of MPs 'claim culture' disclosed
Sunday, 10 May 2009

Yet more damning evidence of the 'claiming culture' in Westminster was disclosed today, with a further assortment of politicians embarrassed over their expenses activity.

Five Sinn Fein MPs were facing questions over nearly £500,000 in taxpayers' money they received for running second homes in London - despite not even taking up their seats in the Commons. Shocked

One current minister, Kitty Ussher, set out a two page wish-list of improvements to her house in the capital and merely instructed parliament officials: "Please pay as much as you are able." Rolling Eyes

Another, Kevin Brennan, apparently had a £450 television delivered to his family home in Wales, even though it had been claimed on expenses for use at his London home. Evil or Very Mad

Meanwhile, it emerged that Communities Secretary Hazel Blears had avoided £18,000 in capital gains duty on a taxpayer-funded flat. She seemingly told HM Revenue & Customs it was her primary residence, while simultaneously declaring it as a second home to the Commons. [I'm running out of emoticons!]

The latest salvo of sleaze was unleashed by the Sunday Telegraph amid signs that the reputation of parliament - and of Gordon Brown personally - were sustaining serious damage.

More than two thirds of the public believe the scandals have directly hurt the Prime Minister, according to a poll by ICM for the News of the World.

Some 89% of those quizzed warned that people's opinion of MPs had been tarnished, and 91% called for uncensored expenses records to be published in full immediately.

More than seven in 10 people did not think MPs should ever be able to claim for a second home - the aspect of their expenses that has caused the most controversy.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey warned that a "culture of abuse" had developed in relation to Westminster expenses, and MPs only had themselves to blame.

"The moral authority of Parliament is at its lowest ebb in living memory," he wrote in the NotW.

"The latest revelations show it was not just a few MPs with their noses in the trough, but a culture of abuse."

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/more-evidence-of-mps-claim-culture-disclosed-1682407.html

Posted: 10-05-2009 12:14 Post subject:

And the Mail digs up this:

Commons boss who called in police has four homes in three countries, including grace and favour mansion
By Barbara Jones and Glen Owen
Last updated at 10:19 AM on 10th May 2009

The Commons official who called in the police over the leak of MPs' expenses splits his time between four homes in three countries worth an estimated £4.5million.

Dr Malcolm Jack, the Clerk of the Commons - its chief executive - contacted Scotland Yard on Friday to say he believed there were 'reasonable grounds' to suspect criminal behaviour over the disclosures.
As the most senior figure in the House, it is Dr Jack's job to ensure that MPs spend taxpayers' money responsibly.
Yet despite this onerous duty, Dr Jack, a close ally of Speaker Michael Martin, finds time to fly around the globe visiting his properties and has a second job as an author. His publisher even describes him as 'living in Portugal'.

When 62-year-old Dr Jack became Clerk in 2006 he moved into 3 Parliament Street, a plum grace-and-favour home opposite the Commons worth £2.8million. In the same year, the Westminster authorities spent £100,000 on a lavish redecoration of the property, adding sparkling new features which included a £39,000 kitchen, bespoke furniture, a butler's tray, flat-screen television and two ionic columns costing £963.
He also benefited from furniture polishing in the 'patio area', a £1,500 black slate hearth and 'knife-pleat empire lamp shades' at £158 a time.
MPs were furious about the expenditure - ironically, given the current furore about their claims - because the spending had not been approved by them. Wink

Parliamentary officials said the cost of the refurbishment was below the threshold necessary for approval by MPs. Rolling Eyes

Dr Jack also owns a £1million townhouse in a leafy road in Islington, North London - shared for more than a decade with his 55-year-old partner, Robert Borsje - as well as a £600,000 home in Camps Bay, South Africa. In addition, he has the use of an apartment in Cascais, Portugal, estimated to be worth at least £250,000.

etc...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1179951/Commons-boss-called-police-homes-countries-including-grace-favour-mansion.html

Posted: 10-05-2009 13:37 Post subject:

I do think that those who are focusing on trivia (5p for a carrier bag etc) are missing the wider issue. The very small claims were almost certainly simply items on a receipt for much more - frankly I can't get hugely excited about MPs claiming for a bath plug or whatever if that is permitted under the rules.

The really outrageous stuff, IMO, is the so-called "flipping" - buying a wreck of a flat as a second home, having at done up at taxpayers' expense and then suddenly declaring the constituency home as the second residence in order to charge renovations/mortgage payments on that property. I can't imagine anyone who was doing this could have done so in good conscience. They *must* have known it was a scam.

Posted: 10-05-2009 15:16 Post subject:

It's theft pure and simple.

Take as an example the porno movies. If I had been dipping into petty cash at work and using the money to pay for personal items of pleasure or such like and was caught I would be sacked on the spot and the police called.

It is my understanding that expenses are there for you to be reimbursed for goods/services you have paid for in the course of doing your job i.e. hotel bills, transport to and from meetings etc... How cat food and garden maintenance and some of those kind of things - and porn movies - help you do your duty as an MP is beyond me and the fact that people were claiming for these items is scandalous.

Mandelson was interviewed about it on Sky and when it was pointed out that someone - Hillary Benn I think - had managed to get by on only £100 expenses for an entire year the interviewer failed to press him on why one MP can get by on such a low figure while others are cashing in at ridiculous levels.

For a long while now being an MP has been more about career-progression and lining your pockets than serving the public and it has to change.

Posted: 10-05-2009 17:04 Post subject:

I like the way they've resorted to trying to pass the buck again.

I don't think they realise that the general public are starting to view all politicians as greedy scum and not just those that currently occupy the big house.

It's the school mentality of "They're doing it too" that really pisses me off. Stop wasting time pointing chubby, sweaty fingers at each other and own up to your mistakes.

-

I saw one female MP on the news last night complaining that she needed three homes and one was for her husband and family to live in so that she could have a personal life away from work.

I mean, just what the fuck?!

You get a job and you take your family with you or you don't. It's a decision faced by more and more people in the current economical climate and here's some grubby MP whinging that she needs three homes?