‘MPs screwing the taxpayer’ awards 2008
Dear readers,
Welcome to the inaugural award ceremony that rewards those MPs who have clearly gone out of their way to shaft the British taxpayer over the past year. On the Parliament website you can find a list of MP’s expenses for the last parliamentary session, but they curiously published it on a PDF file to prevent people from digging a bit deeper into the columns of data. Thankfully, with my ‘Excel geek’ hat on, I’ve managed to put together the definitive list of who screwed the taxpayer the most in the 2006/2007 proceedings, and here is a list of the winners.
Total expenses – the clear winner of the award for the MP who cost the taxpayer the most money is… Shahid Malik from the Labour Party! He cost you and me £185,421 in a single year, which was £7,300 more than any other MP in the entire country. But he wasn’t the only Labour culprit – closer inspection of the numbers show that Labour have 37 of the top 50 most expensive MPs in the country. For the sake of comparison, in the top 50, the Conservatives have one person – yes, one.
Office and staff costs - the winner of the award for the MP who spent the most of our money on running an office goes to…. Barry Gardiner from the Labour Party! He spent £123,852 on his office and staff in one year, which was £2,800 more than any other MP (Shahid Malik was second on the list, just in case you were wondering). If you rank all of the MPs in the country, you will also find that Labour have 7 out of the top 10 most expensive MP offices in the whole country.
Car travel – the clear winner in the category for the MP who spent the most taxpayers’ money on driving a car goes to… Janet Anderson from the Labour Party! She somehow racked up expenses claims of £13,851 for a car, around £1,700 more than any other MP in the entire country. Labour have 9 out of the top 10 most profligate MP drivers.
Rail travel – the winner of the award for the MP who blew the most money on rail journeys goes to… Alan Milburn from (yes, you guessed it) the Labour Party! I was sickened to read that he spent £15,785 on train tickets, about £1,000 more than any other MP. Again, Labour have 9 out of the top 10 big spenders on the train.
Air travel – astonishingly, a Labour MP didn’t win this award. Instead it went to… Angus MacNeil from the SNP! He spent (wait for it) £30,560 of taxpayers’ money on flights in one year, which is almost £6,000 more than any other MP. The top 10 spenders on flights consisted of 3 Labour, 5 Lib Dems and 2 SNP.
Staff travel – in terms of the MP who spent the most on getting his staff around, the winner is…. Mohammad Sarwar from the Labour Party! He blew £4,500 of our money on his staff. Labour have 7 out of top 10 MPs in this category.
Stationery and postage - if you were thinking this would be a low-spending category, you would be wrong. The winner is… Siobhain McDonagh of the Labour Party! She spent (wait for it) £49,107 on stationery and postage. No, I’m not making this up. She somehow managed to rack up a bill of £13,900 on stationery, and then spent an extra £35,207 of taxpayers’ money on posting letters – which was £10,000 more than any other MP in the entire country in total. The fact that Labour have all of the top 10 MPs in this category is hardly surprising, seeing as they are clearly wasting our money trying to dig their heels in for the next election. Is that ‘communication allowance’ I hear you cry?
IT - the winner of the award for the MP who spent the most on IT services goes to… Liam Byrne of the Labour Party! He blew £2,545 on IT last year, and Labour have 6 of the top 10 MPs for IT services.
Staff cover and other costs – the winner of the final award in today’s proceedings is… Joan Ryan of the Labour Party! I’m not sure what this set of expenses includes, but she still managed to spend £19,068 on it, which was £4,700 (25%) more than any other MP in the entire country.
So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the show and that you haven’t (yet) felt the need to smash your computer screen into tiny pieces after reading what Labour MPs are doing with your money. The Labour Party – the party of the people, the party who believe in equity, the party who stand up for the poor and the working class? Yer, right.
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Out of interest, what’s the average spending on IT? I’m actually surprised the cost isn’t higher, considering how fast money can disappear into technology acquisition and support running costs. Unless MPs are getting their software off Bittorrent.
Average spending is almost exactly £1,000 a year, which will pay for some nice kit if I’m not mistaken, and an MP caught up in a file sharing scandal would be brilliant!
You might be interested to know that the reason that Angus Brendan MacNeil spent so much on Air Travel (If you had looked at a map) is because he represent the Western Isles. For him to get to London each week he needs to get two British Airways planes (Which are not the cheapest carriers.) By looking at their website you will find that the cheapest prices start at £120 to £200 return just to get to Glasgow or Edinburgh.
Internally within the Western Isles, as well, the only easy way to get from one end to the other is to take a plane (130 miles long) unless you have the time to spend most of the day in a car and get two internal island ferries.
Thank you for providing yet another reason for making damn sure that Scottish MPs don’t vote on English matters
Some of those costs make sense; especially the air travel ones. The SNP and Lib Dems represent the more far-flung constituencies in Scotland and also in Cornwall. The costs of running an office suggest that the top-spending MPs have either a large staff or that their staff is very well paid. Neither of those things are bad if the MP gets their money’s worth out of them, I suppose. Those stationery and IT expenses are ridiculous though! Still, my biggest personal problem is definitely the second home allowances.
SNP MP’s don’t vote on English issues anyway. They still need to be down in parliament mosts weeks for issues that don’t just affect England.
£49,107 on stationery and postage? … I got a stern look when I took a fresh pack of staples from the stationary room this morning.
Why does Mr.McNeil have to go home every weekend? Some of us working away from home don’t get home for a month or more. I thought we were all supposed to keep our ‘carbon footprint’ as small as possible. Maybe it doesn’t apply to the likes of Mr.McNeil.
How aggravating – when I travel round UK using national express and megabus to look after the pennies that Gordon hasn’t stolen and Labour MPs wallpaper their houses with stamps (how else could you spend that much?!) with the rest of my hard earned cash!
Shame…..
This is precisely my point. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be allowed to travel at the taxpayers’ expense, but as Edd rightly pointed out if things really are that difficult, they cannot just use the taxpayer to fund whatever is most convenient for them.
Respect for the taxpayer is clearly lacking in all areas of the expenses system.
Again out of interest, and I’m not advocating this position at all, more curious at commentators’ views, what would you say to the suggestion that expense “perks” are one of the few things that attract talented people (stop sniggering at the back) to public service rather than private industry?
I know that some MPs complain about how their salaries should be bumped up because people earn more than them ‘in the City’. I think these MPs should take a long look at the number of people applying to be MPs – if the level of pay or expenses put people off, it would have done so years ago. It’s the prestige and importance of being an MP that makes most jobs look pretty pedestrian, in my opinion, rather than the expenses. Even if they start hiking MP’s pay, I doubt the number of applicants would increase that much.
The talent in the House of Commons is a trickier issue, as local constituencies choose their candidates for elections (which is fine with me) so there is little ‘quality control’ in the strictest sense. Having said this, I’d hope that there are enough people out of 650-odd MPs to make a decent government!
To be fair to Angus MacNeil, he is MP for the most remote constituency (apart from the Shetlands, that is). I don’t think I can begrudge him that at all…and as for Edd complaining about him going home too much…oh deary me! If he’s representing a constituency, I thought the whole point was that they spent time in it…? and maybe saw their family a bit as well…?
Tis the same in every country. No matter who they are, once they get access to the public funds they spend and spend and spend. The stationery and postage costs are rather incredible.
How about the grand total split for Labour and Conservative, because something about value for money keeps coming into my head. For years businesses have been right-sizing, down-sizing, whatever the latest jargon is and yet it seems there is no control or limit to what our public servants can run up in costs. How about a fixed annaul budget, administered by the party. That’s how normal people have to live and work. As mosts MP’s have never had a real job, maybe this should be considered part of their life training!
Islander
Try not coming at all and save us Englanders a bundle.
Try video conferencing or BBC parliament .
Now that 70% of our laws come from Soviet EUnion you and the rest are not needed.
In Beckenham (10 miles from Westminster our MP (Mrs Lait – Tory) charges £15,301 for housing plus £6,884 for mileage. So far as I can tell this is a total of 21,536 pa or 59 miles a day 365 days a year!
Why should anyone be surprised at these people? They are public sector personified. As Milton Friedman said in “Free to Choose” -chapter 4: Cradle to Grave – they are spending other peoples money on themselves and someone else. Considering their backgrounds, it is only natural that they will try and screw their employer with expense claims. Likewise, when you are spending someone else’s money on someone else – welfare payments for example – why would they have any incentive to economise; to seek efficiency of spending and demand effectiveness of that spending.
Interesting perspective. The expenses system clearly allows for significant abuse, so out of 650 MPs it is highly likely that someone will play the system when it is other people’s money on the line. Imagine what a mix you’d get if you took 650 people off the street and put them in the same position.
Which party has the most ‘Second homes’ and claims the 23,000 quid a year to refurbish?
The problem is that I couldn’t give a ‘Second Homes’ award because over 180 MPs claim the maximum allowance of £22,100!!!
Regarding housing allowances, which MP couples, living together, both claim the allowance for same residence, eg. do Ann Keen & husband who live within easy commuting distance of Westminster, or Ed & Yvette?
Ann and Alan Keen BOTH charge the taxpayer around £19,000 a year, and Ed and Yvette BOTH charge the taxpayer about £16,000 a year.
Draw your own conclusions….
£35,000 for postage? How many letters is this
(assuming it is promotional bumpf, not gifts)? Is it physically possible for her to send so many letters in the time?
We heard Dennis Mcshane on a recent ‘Daily Politics’ say that he’d been in both France and Germany in the past 2 weeks. Was this a holiday in ‘term-time’? Alternatively why would an ex-Minister for Europe be jaunting around the continent at the taxpayers expense…even if he IS the MP Labour field when the rest are too timid to defend a cause!
You make a lot of good points but your ignorance of MacNeil’s Hebridean constuency and your spiteful reluctance to have him spend at least a day or two a week with his constituents as a valid MP’s expense is unconservative and idotic.
Mr MacNeil spends £6,000 (20%) more than any other Scottish politician, which I think deserves to be highlighted and a convincing explanation of this would be much appreciated.
Quite why highlighting his high spending is “unconservative” is beyond me, and the irony of you spelling ‘idiotic’ incorrectly did not escape my attention.
Is there just one MP in the UK who is honest, accountable and worth their salary………I think not. Too many crooks in smart suits ripping the taxpayer off.
The fact is……there is not one party worth voting for in the UK today, they are all the same animal with different clothing. As for Labour, the worst turnout in 100 years for a general election and they got in by sheer luck; not representative of the people. A government that are control freaks and dangerous social engineers who would be more suited running Stalinist USSR Communist Russia.
They have destroyed the UK with their vision of what they think should be a better nation; they are mistaken and hopefully wil have their sorry arses kicked to high heaven come next general election time.
I have just watched the news at 10 and see that the speaker of the house, who is investigating M.P.’s expenses in now under investigation himself as his wife has claimed £4,000 in taxi fares since 2004. Talk about setting a thief to catch a thief. This just shows once again how out so called public servants can’t resist getting they’re snouts well and truly stuck into the public trough. When are the British public going to wake up and demand some accountability?
I nominate Jack Straw M.P. for most wasteful M.P. having just spent £170,000 of tax payers money on artwork for his office in recessionary times.