Sir Christopher Kelly gets it all wrong
Dear Sir Christopher Kelly,
After Sir Thomas Legg made a complete hash of approaching the issue of MP expenses a couple of weeks ago, I was hoping for something a bit more solid, respectable and effective from yourself. Details of your report on reforming MP expenses have emerged after you discussed them in Parliament for the first time yesterday, and it is quite clear that you have got it all wrong on the issues of MPs second homes and MPs employing family members.
Let’s deal with second homes first, as this has proved to be the most controversial allowance. You are proposing to ban MPs from claiming the cost of mortgage interest payments on second homes and will recommend that MPs rent second homes in future. What an unbelievably stupid idea. Do you have any idea how much it costs to rent a home in London? Didn’t you think that it might be a good idea to check this first before coming out with such a daft proposal? Even a cursory glance at a property site will show that it is extremely hard to find a property for less than £1,500-£2,000 a month, yet you have not given any indication of whether MPs will be limited by any sort of renting budget. The last thing we need is a free-for-all when it comes to MPs renting homes at our expense and the potential for abuse would be enormous unless this is carefully controlled. Furthermore, if MPs have to rent houses they could easily rack up bills of £25,000+ a year, which could and should have been used by Parliament to buy furnished properties (preferably flats) in London and allocated to MPs after each election, thereby removing the need for any expenses as MPs would each have a permanent base and the John Lewis list could be torn up once and for all.
Next comes the recommendation that MPs will not be able to employ family members. There is obviously an argument to say that in a fair and open selection process, it is unlikely that MPs’ wives or indeed husbands would be top of the pile for every job in a Parliamentary office. However, unions representing Commons staff say they are already considering legal action as such a move may amount to constructive dismissal and be discriminatory. I can see no possible defence against such claims, because firing someone simply on the basis that they are related to their employer is illegal and rightly so. Alternatively, you could ban any new family members from being employed after your report is published, but even then you risk legal action on the basis of discrimination. Obviously the Derek Conway incident was disgraceful as he just handed thousands of pounds to his son for supposedly temporary work, but this kind of nonsense could be stopped by having Parliament employ staff and deal with contracts rather than MPs, who still exercise complete control over who works for them. If researchers, secretaries and even interns were all allocated from an anonymous pool for each party’s MPs, there would be no need to ban family members nor would there be any need for staff allowances.
Your proposals are both ill-conceived and likely to complicate matters even further. If Parliament bought permanent accommodation for MPs in London and allocated staff to MPs on an anonymous basis, every MP would have somewhere to live in the capital, every MP would have the staff they require to do their job, the need for second homes and staff expenses would be thrown out the window and Parliament could start to rebuild some of the moral authority that it has pissed away in recent months and years. Your reforms will apparently be phased in over five years to appease MPs concerned that their existing arrangements might be endangered, but this merely distracts from the fact that your reforms will do little, if anything, to help Parliament get back on its feet.
Yours in frustration,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Unless i am mistaken ( i admit i have been retired for years) they all committed offences under equal opportunities leglislation by failing to advertise and interview properly for such posts and they all employed family members. !!
Unless of course they excused themselves fom the legislation making it one law for them and one law for the rest of us.
Capital Gains Tax on second homes springs to mind !!
I am a conservative voter for most of my life and in a deep state of shock about all these revelations. My wife was right, they are all corrupt.
No problems, all you to employ your wifes/girlfriends but these jobs must be advertised locally, then an independant panel to choose best candidate and lastly, PAY THE GOING RATE
40K for a home secretary (jacqui smiths husband) IS NOT THE GOING RATE
joolz
Nah the Kelly thing looks fairly spot on.
The mortgage ban MAY cost fractionally more than paying interest, yes, but what it definitely definitely unequivocally stops is MPs using interest claims to amass massive property fortunes, flipping their homes to expand that fortune and so on.
That’s a price worth paying.
As for employing family members, I couldn’t care less about people *given* jobs that were not advertised and almost certainly did not comply with employment legislation & valid practices in any event. Ultimately we elect AN MP, not AN MP, HIS FAMILY AND ANY OTHER HANGERS ON THEY CHOOSE TO TAKE WITH THEM. I’ve no sympathy for the people this has come as a shock to because they’ve lived it up at our expense in fake jobs for long enough.
Ken, you’re right about breaking employment law and I have little sympathy with MPs on that front, but if firing family members breaks employment law then it starts to get really complicated…..
Julian, that is precisely the problem with letting MPs use their enormous staff expenses as they choose. Like I said, Parliament should allocate staff to MPs for each party and should use fixed salary scales so that everyone is on a level playing field.
Shaun, what do you mean MAY cost more? Monthly mortgage payments would be considerably LESS than renting properties in London, so the taxpayer is going to be worse off – which is surely a stupid solution, given the anger at MPs wasting our money. Parliament should buy a set of properties for MPs to use and kill this whole issue.
You’ve fallen for their spin. Let me show you how they make it cost *less* when looking at reality.
If I have to rent a property, event a nice one, it will top out at a couple of grand a month. Until recent interest rates plunged to record lows, it was still very unlikely that there’d be much of a differential between renting and purchasing in compressed markets like London.
However, if I have the option to have my mortgage interest paid, I think I’d buy a £5 million townhouse or luxury flat, or what the hell, a nice £15 million pad and do so on an interest-only mortgage. Not only will this cost considerably more than the rent but I’d have the ability to sell the property and take profit on the inexorable rise in property values over a parliamentary term.
This creates the *appearance* of corruption and encourages MPs to game the system. I’d rather pay their rents, even if it is more, than know that I’m funding their private property portfolios.
When Parliament is dissolved for an election do these people remain in employment? And if so who’s employing them? MPs are technically unemployed, so not in receipt of allowances and so their spouses can’t be in a role.
Agree it’s a grey area but for MPs & their spouses to happily flout most aspects of employment legislation for years when it’s to their benefit and then scurry behind it when they feel threatened says more about them collectively than it does about Kelly surely…?
@Liam Murray – To your question, Do they remain employed, the answer under law is definately yes, look up the Forth Dock Workers case for the legal explaination.
I have to agree with LFAT on one front here, the employment of family members. In terms of value for money and the level of trust involed in dealing with what can sometimes be highly personal and confidential information, there may be a very strong argument that an MP’s Wife or Husband may be the best person for the job.
They have constant access to the MP, they have the total trust of the MP, they also understand the needs of the MP without being a threat to normal family life. If you employ a normal secretary (ie one who is not related or has no paticular political ambitions), they are likley to enforce the normal rules of employment: set hours, set renumeration, overtime payments, strict interpretation of the role.
The request to ‘Get me a couple of asprin and a strong coffee’ might end up as a case for sexual discrimination.
To be an effective MP in a distant rural constituancy, you need either a very loyal wife or husband, or an employee who is not only a political ally, moral guide and advisor, but has an understanding of the MP and the authority to act on his or her behalf.
If I were to stand for Parliament, I would make it quite clear that my assitant would be my Wife, and that she would offer much better value for money than anyone else Mr Kelly could suggest!
Shaun, rents in London for a plush house can easily head up towards £3,000-4,000 unless some strict rules / caps are introduced, so I’m happy to agree to disagree until the fine details are announced in Kelly’s final report. That said, I still think Parliament owning properties is the best solution by a mile.
Liam, as Tony said, Parliament already pays for the researchers as they are technically independent of the political process – hence why when Parliament dissolves in the month before the election, there are under no compulsion to work for their MP in a political capacity. My argument is that as Parliament pays their salaries, they should be hired by Parliament too and simply allocated to MPs.
Tony, I agree with you to some extent but couldn’t the same logic (trust, confidentiality etc) be used to justify nepotism in any walk of life and flout employment law on a regular basis?…
I can’t necessarily counter that argument, maybe only that in the representitive role that MP’s take on it would be more difficult to find someone with whom trust would be more cemented than a spouse whose outlook and attitude would almost certainly be similar. (For example, could you imagine yourself being married to a card carrying communist?)
Would you feel more comfortable talking to a MP’s employed assitant, or his Wife?
Now to go one step further, would you prefer to talk to an MP’s assistant chosen from a supposedly apolitical pool employed by parliament, or the MP’s wife?
So long as it is clear that the work being paid for is being done, I think that this kneejerk reaction is one which will deliver poor value.
Am I alone in thinking that Kelly has come out with the outcome that he was instructed to?
Well why not have an upper ceiling. Max 1000 a month for rent and they can pay the rest themselves if they want a nicer place. For those who don’t want to pay extra, perhaps a council house is in order.
LFAT,
I thought that an MP should have to apply for a percentage of a property and own it (using rules so you can only have the equivalent of say a 3 bed terrace in avg area – can change this) so that an MP can have better but only if willing to pay. When the property is sold, the taxpayer gets the percentage back (so its possible for MP to profit, but taxpayer will at same time).
As for family staff, I would say to allow it on the basis of 1 family member per MP, and that the cost is controlled externally as your point.
@BM – Agree with you BM…
Or, no interest payments, no rent payments, no 2nd house necessary.
100 quid a night Hotel (from list supplied, if they want better they can pay for it themselves) x 4 nights a week x 4 weeks = 1600 quid. They have so much holiday (especially now) that I doubt the bill would pass GBP13,000 per MP per year.
Tony, in all honesty I’d prefer someone talented but not related to be sitting next to an MP if I was in a meeting with them. A wife or husband of an MP is hardly going to be impartial in terms of dealing with complaints or problems down the line.
Span Ows and BM, it might work, but I can still see the headlines down the road – “Taxpayers subsidising London mansions for grandee MPs”….
Scott, bit of a fiddly proposal in my opinion. Not happy with MPs making any profit whatsoever, seeing as that is not part of the deal of being a public servant. In addition, what would happen if the property made a loss – who would pick up the bill?
@LFAT – If it was a loss, then both. It becomes a pot with a limit and the MPs can use it towards any property. That way the rich MPs can have mansions, but they’re subsidised and non-wealthy MPs make do with adequate housing.
I personally don’t like the idea of renting, as that is pure waste of money (as is current ‘paying the interest’). Whereas my option buys capital and when the MP resigns or is deselected, the property is sold and the money returned. Good value imo.
I agree that permanent accommodation is the way to go. As far as employing wives and other family members, I really cannot a problem as long as their wages are kept at a reasonable level.
To a certain extent, us wives tend to help our husbands out if they have businesses and we don’t get paid at all to do it.. but I would limit it to wives or partners!
I really don’t understand why MPs should need to be policed over their expenses. The fact that they have been troughing so blatently means that they are dishonest and they (the majority) should all go. In their place we should elect people that are trustworthy and not mindful to fleece the taxpayer.
However, as our untrustworthy post war governments have now given away most of the powers we entrusted to them to the monster in Brussels I don’t see why we need to retain any MPs.
The EU will fleece the British taxpayer to an extent that we have never been fleeced before. Unless of course Dave in minded to stop them, but that is looking ever more doubtful isn’t it?