MPs embrace new expenses scrutiny

26 Jun 09
Influential MPs have welcomed proposals for an independent regulator to oversee the payment of MPs’ expenses.

By Alex Klaushofer

26 June 2009

Influential MPs have welcomed proposals for an independent regulator to oversee the payment of MPs’ expenses.

Sir Stuart Bell, who sits on the Members Estimates Committee – which oversees Commons expenses – told the Committee on Standards in Public Life there was a need for an independent body to replace the current ‘ridiculous’ system.

‘An incestuous culture between the Fees Office and a member exists to this day. A member can berate and bully the Fees Office and maybe that has happened too much,’ he said.

The only way to prevent that was an independent body, which would be accountable to Parliament, he added.

Bell was giving evidence, along with other MPs, to the committee’s inquiry into MPs’ expenses – chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly – which is due to report in the autumn.

The new Commons Speaker John Bercow – himself accused of ‘flipping’ homes in the expenses scandal – has said he favours greater transparency in the presentation of expenses.

The hearing came on the day that Commons leader Harriet Harman announced plans to make breaching the rules a criminal offence under a new Parliamentary Standards Bill.

MPs giving ‘false or misleading information’ in their allowance claims could go to jail for up to a year or face an unlimited fine, while those failing to register interests would face a fine of up to £5,000.

The government plans to rush through the Bill – which will also create the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority – before Parliament breaks for the summer, ahead of recommendations from the Kelly committee.

Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, who ran unsuccessfully for speaker on June 22, told the committee that the proposed standards authority must have the teeth to impose its decisions on MPs’ pay and benefits.

‘If an independent body is determining these things – our pay, our allowances – then if that body says: “You should have more of this and less of that”, both those recommendations should be binding,’ she said.

‘I think the only way we’ll get any sense out of it is if we have an independent body saying: “This is so”.’

Bell said he regretted the fact that Parliament had voted last July against proposals by the Members Estimate Committee to replace the existing system with overnight expenses and a daily subsistence allowance.

The publication last week of MPs’ expenses with large sections of information blacked out has been widely condemned, causing Harman to promise to ‘look at’ the issue again.

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