The Speaker

I have a huge amount of work to get through this evening, so not much time to blog but in view of today's events, thought I should at least blog quickly on the Speaker's resignation.

Was first told the news by Sadie of Sadie's Tavern fame as I was racing on my way to PPS in a Westminster Hall debate. Went into a packed Chamber a bit later for his statement but before doing so I joined other (mostly) Labour colleagues in the Member's Lobby to applaud Michael Martin as the Speaker's Procession went by.

I accept that he made the right decision, that there was no way he could stay on. He's a thoroughly nice and decent man, but it's difficult to see how he could have steered the Commons through the rocky waters ahead. But even so.... I'm not someone who has much time for the pomp and ceremony of parliamentary tradition, but hounding a Speaker out of office in this way seems like the wrong way to go about things. Someone said to me on Twitter that politics was no place for the sensitive. No, but we should have some respect for the dignity of the office. And some respect for the man too.

Anyway, I've already nailed my colours to the mast regarding my support for John Bercow, and although he hasn't declared his name is certainly being talked about. Martin Salter is on Channel 4 News at the moment, saying that the next Speaker should be 'a fully-paid up member of the modernising tendency', 'dragging this gentlemen's club kicking and screaming into the 21st century' - which means Bercow. (A much changed creature since he stood against Dawn Primarolo in Bristol South many years ago.) The difficulty will be in finding Tories to support him! (They seem to be pushing Frank Field.... in which case they'd have the opposite problem!)

It's generally accepted we can't have another Labour candidate, given that the past two Speakers have been Labour MPs. Other names in the frame are Sir Alan Beith, Sir George Young, Richard Shepherd (my God!) and someone mentioned David Heath too, although I think it would be wrong to have anyone who is currently serving on the front bench, given that the Speaker should really be someone who can stand above party politics. David Davis has also been on Channel 4 saying 'this is going to be the most powerful Speaker in history' - 'the first Speaker who can actually bang people's heads together'. Yes, which means it's no job for a grandee.

As for the connection between this and the MPs' expenses row. Yes, it's a distraction but I think it was more a case of people (MPs/ media) scenting blood when the Speaker was wounded, rather than it being deliberately stoked up to distract attention from the Telegraph's revelations.

Update

Was in the Chamber for the Speaker's statement, which I suspect will do little to address the current turmoil. I was rather surprised that he didn't seem to know the status of Douglas Carswell's motion of no confidence, calling it an early day motion, and then having to check with the clerks whether it was indeed a substantive motion before confirming that it was actually one of the 'remaining orders of the day'. He then had to check again with the clerks how or if it could ever become a substantive motion, which would mean it gets debated in the main Chamber and voted upon. I'd have thought he'd have been briefed on all that before coming before the House.

Anyway, the answer seems to be that the Government (which would mean Harriet as the Leader of the House) has to decide to put it on the Order Paper, so the question now I suppose is how many signatures would the motion have to obtain before Harriet feels it has be debated? Obviously can't debate every motion that gets a few signatures as otherwise we'd never get round to normal parliamentary business, but what would be a critical mass? 10% of backbenchers? 20%?

We're working through the ACA (second home) receipts at the moment with a view to publishing them tonight or tomorrow. The technical difficulty is this:

- The Fees Office will be publishing 'redacted' copies in due course, by mid-June it's hoped. These will have all sensitive details blacked out, e.g. home addresses, bank account details, credit card details, staff details (i.e. the addresses and bank account details), etc.

- At the moment, however, MPs have been given online access to, and paper copies upon request, of a different set of papers, which has the redacted bits shown in grey - i.e. you can see what is going to be blacked out, but it's still visible at the moment. This is what the Telegraph has got its hands on.

- The only way for an MP to publish the redacted version therefore is to sit down with the paper copies, black out the grey bits, scan them onto the computer (with, in my case, a doddery old fax machine as the scanner which doesn't like scanning more than a couple of pages at a time) and then publish.

- Frank Field has found a way to do this online, i.e. changing the grey bits to black, but apparently techno-buffs would find it quite easy to turn them back to grey.

- We've been told by the Fees Office that as soon as we publish the claims ourselves, we become responsible under the Data Protection Act for any information put into the public domain. So we have to be quite careful about what we put online.

I intend to put online some of the information that the Fees Office has redacted. For example, there is one claim where they have blacked out a sume of c£1200 claimed by me for security and a note explaining that I'd cleared this with someone in the Fees Office, and it was because I'd been burgled twice. I can't see why this is particularly sensitive information. Also, the total claim for that month still includes that sum, so if I was to publish the redacted version people would be wondering what on earth the missing £1200 was spent on. I also don't see why it's necessary to redact the names of the places where I bought things, or the dates - e.g. there's a receipt from Purves and Purves from 30th December 2005. Everything on that receipt has been redacted by the Fees Office, except the amount. Obviously I'd want my credit card details kept private, but I don't have a problem with people knowing where I purchased something from or the fact I waited until the end of year sales to do so!

As for the IEP (office costs) allowances - the bundles of paper are huge. The claims forms are of two types - direct payment to suppliers, and reimbursement of MPs' expenditure. I don't think the first type (C2) is particularly interesting, it's mostly receipts from Banner, the parliamentary stationery suppliers, and office bills. The second type (C1) usually includes these items: office cleaner, mobile phone, surgery room hire, petty cash and a direct debit for the office electricity. Depending on how complicated it turns out to be to do the ACA forms, I'll then do C2 and C1 forms, in that order, but without all the receipts (or the Banner receipts at least - I can assure you I don't have a sideline in selling paper clips and staplers on the black market). I would stress that these are going to be published by mid-June anyway so I'm not hiding anything, I'm just trying to keep a balance between accountability and getting on with the day job.

Gordon Brown is speaking at the PLP again tonight, at 6pm. That makes two weeks in a row, which is unprecedented.

Potholes and Parliament

For various complicated reasons I am neither at my constituency home or London home this weekend (mostly connected with wanting to be near Harefield hospital, nothing more exciting than that). I've been sleeping on a blow-up mattress which has semi-deflated by the time morning comes, wearing someone's padded check shirt to keep warm. My mobile phone battery has gone, and apparently so have the front springs on the suspension of my Smart Car Roadster. Which explains why it's been driving like an old jalopy for the past few months - I'd blamed it on the arrival of the new Lib Dem adminstration on Bristol City Council, envisaging them sending out crack squads to create potholes in the road just so they could take the credit for fixing them. (And of course to provide the essential backdrop for the all-important election leaflet 'standing pointing at potholes with a deeply wounded expression on your face' photos).

Anyway, onto more serious matters.... And time for yet another confession from me. Since I was elected in 2005 I've paid little attention to what could be termed the 'back office' side of Parliament. I always thought that MPs who banged on about parliamentary process, who sat on things like the Administation Committee, who knew and cared what the Serjeant-at-Arms did or why we have a person called Black Rod and what he does when he's not banging on the Chamber door once a year, had, frankly, 'gone native'. They were the parliamentary equivalent of members of the school council or the Junior Common Room; necessary, I suppose, but I couldn't understand why they'd gone to the bother of standing for parliament only to spend their time in committee debating the pressing issue of whether spotted dick should remain on the menu in the Members' Dining Room.

Basically I learned what I needed to learn about parliamentary procedure - how to tell what you're voting on and when, how to table an amendment, what a programme motion is, what's a valid point of order - without bothering too much about the rest. I worked on the assumption that someone else was taking care of things, whether it be Sir this and Sir that from the Tory benches, or the old hands on the Labour side who delighted in such matters, or the Palace of Westminster staff who were employed to make sure the cogs and wheels turned behind the stage curtains, enabling us politicians to take our place in the spotlight and do the serious stuff.

The events of the past year or so, from the Damian Green affair to MPs' expenses have however been the equivalent of the stage curtain being accidentally raised in the middle of Act Two. Or like the Wizard of Oz when his curtain is pulled back by Toto.

I think many of us though, particularly the newer MPs who had come into Parliament to pursue causes they cared passionately about, or took very seriously the job of representing their constituents, still didn't pay that much attention when the FOI requests were put in, or when David Maclean put forward his private member's bill to exempt MPs from it, or when the Speaker made various rulings. It wasn't real politics, it was process. It wasn't what we came into politics for.

But recent events have convinced me however, that those of us who just kind of went along with it were wrong to do so. Much as I would like to just get in and drive my car without caring about the front suspension springs (or in the case of the previous one, without putting my mind to the trivial issue of whether it needed oil and water, which is what killed it), the fact is - you can't drive without a sound vehicle. And Parliament at the moment is not a sound vehicle. (Tempting though it would be to labour this metaphor even further by talking about Nick Clegg's criticism of the Speaker as being akin to standing in the road pointing at a pothole, I won't...)

My feeling at the moment is that it looks as if it's going to be us, those politicians who haven't taken much of an interest till now, the younger generation, who will have to step up to the mark on this. We need to sort Parliament out. I just hope it's not too late to do so.

Shellshock

The one thing I can put into the public domain today, as I've been carrying them around in my handbag since Friday, are the figures for my expnses in the 2008-09 financial year, which aren't part of the current revelations/ publication. I don't have a detailed breakdown or any forms or receipts, just the summary.

The Incidental Expenses Provision (commonly known as the office costs allowance) and the Staffing Allowance are transferable, so, as has been my practice in previous years any money not spent under the IEP I will transfer to the staffing allowance - and if there's a little bit of money left over at the end of the financial year, I will pay it to them as an end-of-year bonus, to compensate for working long hours, for not a great wage and for putting up with me. We're talking hundreds, not thousands by the way. (Athough a bonus of up to 15% of salary is permissible under the rules). All this is by way of explaining that give or take a few pennies and a few bills left to settle I have spent my IEP and my staffing allowances for the 2008-9 year in full.

So - the figures are:

Office costs - £19,985
Staffing - £102,413
Communications - £9,056.68 (out of max. £10,400 allowance, i.e. 87%)
ACA (second home) - £16,961 (out of possible £24,000, i.e. 70.65%)

My ACA claim is relatively low for several reasons. One is because once you've bought the sofa and bed and TV and blinds/ curtains and a few bits and pieces, there's no need to spend any more on such items. Second, I've claimed much less for food, for reasons I've explained in a previous post. And most significantly, interest rates have gone down. And this is an issue for everyone who says that MPs should not be allowed to buy their second home with taxpayer help, but should only be allowed to rent. It's actually much cheaper for the taxpayer if an MP buys, at the moment.

At the moment on a £200k tracker mortgage someone would be paying c.£600 per month capital and £350 or so per month interest, MPs are not allowed to claim for the capital repayments, only the interest. Even a few years ago, the interest on such a mortgage would only be have been around the £1000-£1100 mark. If you try searching for a flat to let in SW1 or SE1, i.e. within a mile or so of Westminster, you'd be hard pushed to find even a studio for much less than £1000pm. So, perversely, allowing an MP to buy rather than rent is - unless interest rates go back to 1980s levels - cheaper for the taxpayer.

The next issue that raises its ugly head is whether MPs should be allowed to keep any profit made when they sell a flat which they've purchased with taxpayers' assistance. Let's leave aside for the moment the question of whether the taxpayer has paid for the sort of improvements and extensions and refurbuishments that would significantly add to a property's value.... I don't think that should be allowed and I don't think it's going to be allowed from now on. (For the record the only thing I've claimed on expenses that might perhaps fall into that category is an alarm system and better locks, but after being burgled twice in one month, and neighbouring flats being broken into while people were actually at home, I thought that was fairly reasonable).

Anyway, let's assume for the sake of argument that there are no fripperies, no porticos being added, no moats being dug. The property still has Artex ceilings, a lawn full of moles and a chimney choked with wisteria. If someone is paying the capital element on a £200k mortgage over 20 years they'd be paying about £7000 a year out of their own salary. So when the property's sold, should they have to, as some are suggesting, handing over all the profit to the Fees office? And then there's the question of what happens if the property is sold at a loss... would the Fees office stump up for that too?

Anyway, that's enough from me. Thought I should do my bit to keep the debate going. Have a listen if you have a moment to the last podcast from Tom Harris and Jamie Reed on Tom's site. I think you can tell from their voices (and they're usually both quite chirpy souls) just how shell-shocked some MPs are by all this. It's been grim, relentlessly grim. And no doubt we have more joys to look forward to in tomorrow's press...

Human (2)

Just over a month ago I posted an explanation as to why I had been out of circulation for a few days (Human). Reluctant as I was to talk about personal matters, I felt I had to do so to justify my online absence around the time of the so-called McBride affair. This is obviously not a good time to go offline again, but someone very close to me had a heart attack Thursday morning and I have spent most of the past 48 hours at Harefield Hospital. (This is not the person mentioned in the 'Human' post, who is currently having chemo and will be operated on soon.)

So... that's why I haven't yet been able to publish my expenses, because all the paperwork is in Westminster and I haven't been there since Wednesday night. And it's why I won't be at the Hope Not Hate campaign day in St George tomorrow, with Billy Bragg (see Hope Not Hate on Facebook for details). All Government Ministers have been told by Gordon Brown that they must be ready to publish their expenses by close of play on Monday. I hope to be able to do so too, personal circumstances permitting.

Still at work...

The rooms at the Palace of Westminster tonight are occupied by weary and despondent MPs, waiting for the last vote of the night on the Finance Bill and finally getting round to looking through the paper copies of their expenses forms. Or at least when we left the tearoom that's where we all said we were going. One senior MP said it had taken him 7 hours to do his, although I can't really see why as it's taken me less than an hour to do everything except the second homes stuff, which in terms of paperwork is actually the smallest bundle. We used to get the office windows cleaned every week - a situation I inherited from the previous MP, along with her office. It was ages before I even realised that. (I hope you will appreciate I had other priorities in the first few years after being elected and my office manager dealt with those invoices). I obviously have lower standards as we now get them cleaned on an 'as needed' basis - i.e. never.

I am going to try to post everything on the website by the end of the week; obviously not all the pages, because there are hundreds of invoices for things like pens and paper clips, but a clear summary of the bits people would be interested in. Spoke to David Laws in the lift today, as had heard he'd already done it. He has, he's told me, posted details of his 2008-09 claims too, so I will attempt to do that. (I say 'attempt' - if I fail it will be because of my inferior grasp of technology, not any more sinister reason!)

As for commenting on the various announcements and further revelations today, I will leave that until I've worked out what's going on. I do think Andrew George is unfortunate in having a very attractive daughter, in that it means his story is bound to get far more coverage than it would do otherwise.

There you go, that's the division bell. Last vote of the night, I hope.

Kind invitation from the Daily Telegraph

"Dear Member of Parliament,

Telegraph TV gives MPs right of reply

Tomorrow the Telegraph is giving all MPs the chance to put their side of the expenses story at the Telegraph TV Expenses Files video booth. Our commitment is that we will publish, unedited on our website whatever you have to say provided it deals with the revelations in our paper and on our website, isn't libelous and is less than two minutes in length. The video booth will be situated in The Atrium, 4 Millbank from 10am to 4pm tomorrow. Our video production team will be on hand to help and we would be delighted to see you.

Best wishes,

Guy Ruddle

Head of Telegraph TV"

A little bit more about expenses

Just a few little factoids I picked up today in conversation with MPs about, what else, expenses. One MP told how when it came to setting up a second home in London she called the Fees Office to ask what they considered to be a reasonable amount to spend on a TV. They wouldn't tell her. All they would say was that it was whatever you would normally spend on such an item. So, she said, if I spend about £300-400 which is what my TV at my family home cost, would that be OK? After some consultation they came back: yes. OK then, she said, how about if at my family home I had a £3000 plasma TV? Would it be OK to claim £3000 in London? After some consultation, another yes. So - if you've already got one big TV you're allowed another one, but if you've only got a small one, you're not. Which means you end up with the scenario where one MP is claiming for a chandelier while most of us are shopping in Ikea. (Haven't read tomorrow's stories about the Tory grandees yet, but I hope you will excuse me for quite looking forward to it. Actually have just found it on the Telegraph website. £14,000 for a housekeeper? How on earth was that ever allowed through? And clearing the moat around his manor house? And work to his stables and for his piano to be tuned? That's the aptly named Douglas Hogg.)

Another MP told me this tale. Apparently you're not allowed to claim for items for children under the second home allowance. So although he quite understandably wanted his family to be able to spend time in both places with him, he couldn't claim for a child's bed. However.... he was told it would be perfectly in order for him to buy another double bed, on the grounds that he could in theory choose to sleep in either one. So - a little bed not allowed, a big one is fine. Mad, isn't it?

Spending the afternoon in a slowly revolving door

Expenses... what to say? Starting point is, yes, the revelations of the past few days, or at least the way they have been reported, are grim and hugely damaging to the reputation of parliament and MPs. I don't intend to comment on any individual cases - except to say that I think the way the press and the BBC reported the story about Gordon Brown reimbursing his brother for paying their shared cleaner was appalling and obviously designed to mislead. Apart from that, all I will say is that I think it's up to each MP to justify themselves to their constituents, and the wider British public. But I can understand why people are angry and appalled.

I haven't, by the way, checked through my bundles of past claims yet; in fact I only collected them this week. I suppose I should do that on Monday when I'm back in the office. I did hear Frank Field MP say that he'd got some of Mark Field MP's paperwork in his bundle, and there have been loads of other similar complaints, so being one of many, many 'Mcs' I'm expecting the worse.

I have to say I'm rather bemused to read the weird selection of items being mentioned in the press, many of which are things MPs simply aren't allowed to claim... I suspect we will find, as with the Phil Woolas case, that the Telegraph has got the wrong end of the stick and confused receipts with claims; if someone has, for example, bought a toaster and a microwave and some bedding for their second home in a Tesco superstore, and also bought shampoo and magazines and cigarettes at the same time, then they would make clear on the claim form they were only claiming for certain items but the receipt would show everything. (Although when I've been in such a situation I've always crossed out the items which aren't being claimed for). This must be the case for some of the confectionary and cat food and eyeliner and things like that. I also think the press have been a bit misleading when they've pulled out individual items from receipts and called them 'claims'. Whoever it was who claimed 5pm for an Ikea bag obviously didn't submit a 5pm claim; he'd have bought some stuff from Ikea's market hall and a 5p bag to put it in, and that would have been just one item on the receipt. What was he supposed to have done? Deleted the 5p? Ditto the 26p wooden spoon mentioned on the Telegraph website as being purchased by a Labour female backbencher. (Which incidentally is the only item where there is even the slightest possibility it might be me. I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying I have one, or two, whereas I don't have a patio heater or a wet room or a barbecue. I have no idea if I've ever claimed for one, but if I did it would have been with other items).

As for what you can and can't, or do and don't claim for, it's a tricky judgment call sometimes... I was with my office manager in Staples in Bristol a while ago. Can't remember what we were buying, but it was probably envelopes and possibly a telephone... put it all on my credit card, as usual. Anyway, at the till we spotted a couple of cute funny-shaped magnetic calculators, one bright pink, one purple, and threw them into the basket too. They were only a few quid each but when it came to filling out the claim form for office costs I decided that we hadn't really needed them and had only bought them because they were fun, so I didn't claim for them (although we do actually use them). A trivial anecdote, but one I tell just to illustrate that we're not all engaging in some sort of MPs' edition of Supermarket Sweep.

It's important to note that the claims appearing in the press at the moment relate to the 2004-08 financial years. I'm told by older colleagues that the system used to be far more lax, and far more widely abused, but that was before the Freedom of Information Act and so we will probably never know the details. (And please can we have just a little bit of credit for introducing the FOI? No? Thought as much.) It's also important to note that the system has been tightened up several times over the past year or so, and will no doubt be further tightened after the Kelly inquiry reports. I would also like to say at this point that when I voted against external audit of our allowances last year, I was patently obviously wrong. I thought the Fees Office did a pretty rigorous job in monitoring our claims, but it looks as if an awful lot of questionable claims were allowed to slip through the net. For what it's worth, I've never had any cause to argue with, or challenge the Fees Office. I once claimed for a hotel room in London, because we were voting till very late at night and I had a very early start the next day. I was told by a colleague I could claim, but then it turned out I couldn't, so I said 'fine'. (This was in the days before I got sorted with a flat in London). But that - and the fact they occasionally chased for receipts that I'd actually already sent them - gave me the impression they were being fairly rigorous in their scrutiny.

During the period 2004-08 no receipts were required for household items under £250 per month. I am sure the coming days will reveal that some MPs abused this by claiming just under that amount each month, in the same way that I'm sure some MPs will have abused the 'up to £250 petty cash' each month from the office costs allowance. All I can say is, I didn't, as will I guess become clear in a few days.

Anyway, from April 2008 (I think) the rule has been that receipts have to be shown for all items over £25 and we have now just voted - a couple of weeks ago - that receipts should be required for items below that amount too. Until April 2009 there was a £400 per month food allowance. As new MPs in May 2005 we were advised by the old hands to claim this as a matter of course; it was our entitlement. So I did, although not over the summer or other periods when I didn't have to be in London. I admit to being uncomfortable with this. It is, I suppose, possible to argue that the cost of feeding yourself when away from home is higher, especially given the long hours, and most businesses or organisations will pay employees a subsistence rate when they're working away. But £400 a month? So I gradually started claiming less and less under this heading. Since April 2009 it's been scrapped and we have a flat £25 subsistence allowance for every night spent away from our main home. I've interpreted this fairly strictly, as nights that have to be spent away from my main home in Bristol. If I choose to spend a few extra days in London over the recess, catching up with friends or shopping, that should not of course count. But if I'm there for meetings or to do stuff in the Westminster office, then it should.

By the way, despite what some press reports are saying about Labour MPs having affairs with each other and double-claiming the costs of hotel accommodation at Labour Party Conference and MP away-days , we are not allowed to claim for any costs at all associated with Party Conference, as it's political not parliamentary work. And Labour doesn't have MP away-days (or weekends). The Tories do; we don't. So that story sounds like rubbish to me.

As for second homes, let me start by saying that the system is obviously massively flawed.... I was selected only a few weeks before the May 2005 election. I didn't have a base in Bristol, so just rented the first place I came across (a small, not very nice flat) and didn't have the time or energy to do anything about settling in or making it home. After the election I used the house I co-owned in Luton as my 'Westminster' base, although the travelling back and forth was a killer (getting home gone midnight, having to be back in London first thing the next day) and designated my Bristol flat as 'my second home'. Over the summer recess I moved out of the place in Luton, got myself sorted in Bristol, and also sorted out a London flat - since then I have considered Bristol to be my main home (I've got a nicer flat now, which is small but has a wonderful view of the floating harbour), where I spend most of my time when Parliament isn't sitting. The London flat (equally small and no view at all because it's a ground floor flat on a main road, so I keep the blinds permanently closed) is my designated second home. I can't see that changing in the foreseeable future.

Other dilemmas... furnishing the second home. I believe that MPs should be entitled to an allowance to do so. We don't all inherit our furniture! But I think that the suggestion that has been made, that newly-elected MPs should have a one-off allowance of about £5000, would be better than the current system. At present if an MP has a low mortgage or rent, there's nothing to stop them spending the rest of the £23,000+ Additional Costs Allowance on furnishings (subject of course to the 'John Lewis' list or home improvements).

And this is easy to exploit - although I would say, once again, that I have never done so. I don't think we're under any obligation to tell the Fees Office any details of our second home so there would be nothing to stop an MP with only a one bedroom flat buying two or three beds. I suppose you could then either put the extra bed(s) in your other home, or - if you were being really dodgy - you could just submit receipts for furniture that someone else had bought, or you could buy it and then return it to the store later for a refund. I have no evidence anyone has done this; I'm just saying it's technically possible.

And of course there's the issue of how you choose between the basic or deluxe model. I've always tried to work on the basis of 'would I be buying this if I had to pay for it myself?' Although in the early days I didn't actually realise we could claim for furniture, so when I kitted out my second home in London from Habitat (mostly, apart from a few item from the Purves and Purves sale), I did it on the assumption I'd be paying off the credit card bill for some months to come.

For most MPs, claims for parliamentary allowances are something they do in a rushed moment at the end of the month, and the paperwork is usually something of a muddle. MPs lead fairly chaotic lives - we have two homes, two offices, we work strange hours, we have people making demands on us from all quarters, and we usually are trying to keep at least six or seven balls in the air at any one time.

I can entirely understand how, for example, could have mistakenly claimed for the same bill two months in a row. You see the bill, you can't recall if you claimed or not, and all the past month's paperwork is at a different home or office or you didn't actually get round to taking a copy of it... so you put the claim in and expect the Fees Office to tell you if you've got it wrong. I've usually erred on the other side of caution, or, rather erred on the side of inaction and not got round to claiming for things I could have done, just because the receipts weren't with me when I filled in the claim forms and I just wanted to get it over and done with. I didn't claim for a TV licence in London for several years because I couldn't remember whether the quarterly direct debit payments were for London, or the monthly ones, and frankly life was too hectic to be bothering about such things. (If you're about to erupt at the very thought of an MP claiming for such things, remember, they are still paying for at least one property. I pay council tax, electricity bills, a TV licence, water rates, insurance, etc, etc, for my home in Bristol).

Anyway... that's a probably futile attempt to go with my other futile attempts to explain the system and why we are where we are. It's not intended to justify what you've been reading about over the past few days, and I agree with those who have expressed their anger at MPs sticking to the mantra 'it was within the rules'. It's not good enough.

As I've said, the rules have changed and further change is needed. I don't have the solution. I don't think anyone does at this stage. But if we have to wear hairshirts for a while, or from now onwards, then so be it. Frankly, we - collectively speaking - deserve it. Although I do still draw the line at sharing a dormitory with Ann Widdecombe and Nadine Dorries!

PS If this isn't enough, I have blogged about this issue on here several times before. And I'm not prepared to post or respond to allegations about colleagues, because I simply don't know what is true and what isn't. Some of it might be libellous.

More on expenses

At least Gordon's announcement this week has triggered a slightly better informed debate about MPs' expenses than we've had over the past year or so. Michael White has an interesting piece in the Guardian, although I think he's wrong on the second jobs issue. (We're only asking people to declare hours worked and money earned - what's wrong with that? Constituents can then decide whether or not they're getting value for money from a part-time MP).

I'm not convinced the daily allowance is the solution, and I voted against it last time, for some of the very reasons that are being put forward now ('clocking in' culture, unfair on people who want to devote more time to constituency than Commons work, lack of transparency in that no receipts are required). I seem to think I got rather a lot of flak for doing so at the time.

But now I think we've reached the stage where the imperative to scrap the second homes allowance is so strong, any alternative would be better. I see the PM's proposals as an interim measure until the full review is concluded at the end of the year.

Michael says he has only 'modest' expectations of sensible comments on his post. Mine are even lower. But have a look at what he says about the systems in other European countries before you rush to judgment.

What the world's been waiting for (3)

Here's Harriet's statement, which fleshes out some of the points flagged up by the PM, including the news that MPs will be expected to make more of a contribution towards their pension. Incidentally I already pay £500 or more a month towards my pension; I'm not complaining about it, just pointing it out for the benefit of those people who think MPs get it handed to them on a plate.

I expect we'll end up debating this next Wednesday or Thursday, as on Monday and Tuesday next week it's the continuation of the Budget debate. And I assume it won't be a whipped vote.

More info here, in the Guardian, which also explains the savings to the taxpayer. MPs representing seats within the M25 won't be allowed to claim, and the allowance could be set at about £6,000 pa less than the current second homes allowance although that's simply speculation at this point.

What the world's been waiting for (2)

Just a postscript on this: watching Newsnight at the moment (which is becoming something of a tired old joke these days, at least when Paxman's on it).

Didn't take long for the backlash to start, did it - MPs being paid on top of their wages 'just for turning up', etc, etc. That's another reason why I voted against this suggestion last year, but also because the whole thing wasn't thought through. Tony Wright has just said on Newsnight that last time this came before the House we 'made a complete botch of it'. Yes.

If we are to go down the daily allowance route, which is the one bit of the announcement where I have some reservations, we somehow we need to make clear this isn't a payment just for turning up to work. It's an allowance to cover the additional costs which that entails (for some, not all of us), such as overnight accommodation.

Some people seem to be suggesting that MPs might claim the money and then, for example, crash on someone's sofa, thus making a bit of money on the side. When my father worked for a well-known furniture removal company on their European moves, the men got given a daily allowance for a hotel and food. They'd spend it all on beer and sleep in the van. Obviously it was more comfortable on the way out, when they had beds in there. I won't be emulating him, I can assure you.

What the world's been waiting for

Just appeared on the Number 10 website: Gordon Brown announces proposals for a radical overhaul of MPs' expenses.

I'm particularly pleased by the plan to make all staff employees of the House of Commons, which is something I've been arguing for for a long time. Not sure how the attendance allowance thing would work out - I've voted against such measures in the past as if someone has a modest flat in central London it's going to cost them the same regardless of whether they're there three nights a week or five. There's one particular MP I know who has a marginal seat, a very long journey to the constituency and a young family there; he would lose out under these proposals because he tries to spend as much time in his constituency as possible, whereas someone who only occasionally visits their constituency might gain. And the bit about second jobs will really put the cat amongst the pigeons for the Tories! Will Gordon be able to achieve a cross-party consensus on this before next week? I suspect not.

"Going round the country I have been struck by the comments that are made by young people when I meet them about the jobs they want to do when they grow up. I meet large numbers of people who want to be doctors and nurses, many who want to be teachers and firemen and ambulancemen and many who want to be in the caring services. And when I ask them why they want to do what they plan to do, they say because they want to make a difference.

But these days I rarely meet anyone who wants to be a Member of Parliament when they grow up and that is a shame, because I think MPs can make an enormous difference to people they represent - whether its voting for laws that improve the whole of the country in or whether it is fighting the cause of a single constituent who needs your help. And we need future generations of committed young people to come into politics.

Now the vast majority of MPs I know do an excellent job. They are in public service not for what they can get, but for what they can give.

Yet the issue of expenses is casting a cloud over the whole of Parliament. So MPs need to have the humility to recognise that the country has lost confidence in the current system. To restore our faith in Parliament, and the good that it can do on the public’s behalf, we must commit to tightening up the system of allowances urgently.

Every MP I know wants to live by the rules, but for too long some of these rules have been insufficiently clear. So we need to make the rules clearer, and we also need to save money.

So I am announcing today urgent proposals to make our system of MPs’ allowances and expenses simpler and less generous.

Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life are continuing to carry out an independent review into the system so we can make permanent changes.

But I believe we have to act urgently with interim proposals to restore people’s confidence that MPs are there to serve the public and not serve themselves.

And I want a vote to take place to overhaul the current system as early as next week. A detailed written statement setting out our will be made by Harriet Harman but its main points are:

- the additional costs allowance - or second homes allowance - should be abolished and replaced by a flat rate daily allowance. This will reflect the fact that MPs do incur extra costs from working in two different places but it should be based on attendance in the House of Commons.

- those ministers who live in official residences would not be entitled to this allowance. Nor would MPs within travelling distance of Westminster - they would receive a London supplement similar to London weighting of salaries.

- the Committee on Standards in Public Life is examining the rules governing employment of spouses or other relatives. But in the interim, staff appointed by MPs should, without exception, become direct employees of the House of Commons, which will now be centrally responsible for their employment terms and conditions, contracts, and the payment of their salaries within the statutory limit allowed - and will have the right to make an audit and independent assessment of such contracts.

- while the committee on standards in public life looks into the issue more fully, we will ensure there is greater transparency on second jobs held by MPs. Where members of parliament have a second source of income from second jobs, every payment should be declared with a full description of what it is for and who paid it. There shall also be a full declaration of the hours worked for the payment received.

I want to discuss these interim proposals with the other party leaders and hope we can reach consensus. We will ask the House of Commons to approve them next week. With these changes I hope that the work of MPs can become recognised again for what it should be – a service to the public."

Rods for our own backs

Colleagues who were elected in 1997 tell me that when MPs used to claim expenses for the second home it was common practice to simply take the annual figure of, say, £20,000, divide it by 12 and then claim that much each month. No need to itemise or account for anything, let alone provide receipts.

And in those not so distant times MPs didn't have to bother about declaring donations to the Electoral Commission under the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act. For the very simple reason that neither the Commission nor the PPERA existed yet.

Complying - or rows about not complying - with Freedom of Information Act requests? Releasing minutes of Cabinet meetings? An Information Commissioner and Information Tribunal ordering the Government to do so? Nope, none of that either.

Just thought I'd mention it... Any chance of any recognition that we've been trying to do the right thing? Nope, thought not.

In shreds

Interesting breaking story in tonight's Evening Standard. As it says, Labour MPs support the PLP office - which provides Labour MPs with political briefings, for example before Opposition Day debates, and advice on campaigning - out of their own salaries, to the tune of some £2000 p.a..

According to the Standard, however, 78 Conservative MPs - including Cameron - have been funding their equivalent, the PRU, from their expenses. (Not allowed. Definitely not).

Meanwhile the Times is reporting that Tory MPs are paying PR firms up to £10,000 p.a. from their staffing allowances. (Not money well spent, judging from the fact that I've barely heard of some of those MPs mentioned in the article). And a dozen Tory MPs are paying their wives up to £40,000 to act as 'executive secretaries'.

I must be on a suicide mission tonight. Smoking and MPs expenses.... And I logged on with the intention of talking about kiwi fruit. That one will have to wait.

Money money money

OK, MPs pay and expenses... Can I start by saying, as I've said so many times before, that I think it's absolutely ridiculous that MPs get to vote on their own pay, and I hope that we've now found a formula so that it doesn't happen in future. I voted against the above inflation pay rise, and 'catch up' proposals (designed to compensate for previous non-rises). I think the PM is right in saying we need to set an example at a time of inflationary pressures and public sector pay restraint.

I also voted to keep the addresses of MPs' second homes private. Having been burgled twice last year, and also been accosted on the doorstep of my London flat late at night by someone wearing a hood pulled tightly round his face and very dark sunglasses (he didn't say anything, just stood waiting for me to open my door), I'd rather not flag up to anyone that here's a property where a woman lives by herself, arrives home very late at night, and isn't there half the week. And most MPs feel the same.

The expenses vote was much trickier. I felt we were somewhat being rushed into reaching a decision on changes. I don't think the various alternative options were debated enough, and the motion that was put on the table was deeply flawed (e.g. the £30 per day attendance allowance, no proposals to remove staff wages from the MPs' allowances system, abuse of second homes allowance, employing of relatives, etc, etc). I didn't think the new package would do anything to address the serious concerns of voters about MPs 'fleecing the system', or having their 'snouts in the trough'. And believe me, even if we'd voted for the new package, the headlines would have been exactly the same the next day. (As Anne Widdecombe put it most eloquently - there were cries of disappointment when she was cut off in full flow at the end of the debate).

As for external audit, which was included as an element of the new package - I wasn't necessarily opposed to the idea, but very little detail was given as to how it would work and I think MPs should be given the chance to put their own house in order. Internal audit systems haven't been very robust, and if they are tightened substantially, that would do the same job but at a much lower cost and less disruption to the everyday running of MPs offices. There is no suggestion of collusion between MPs and internal audit; it's inconsistency and a lack of robustness that's the problem. That can be sorted. For example, we ought to be made to sit down with them at least once each parliamentary session and explain exactly why we've claimed what we've claimed, why we're paying each member of staff what we're paying them, etc, etc.

So I voted to stick with the status quo, in the hope that better plans can be brought back at a later date. With hindsight, an abstention might have sent a better signal - but people would probably have just assumed I'd decided to clear off early for the night. All in all, an opportunity missed, I'd say.

P.S. Of course this has been portrayed in the press as MPs' voting for the 'John Lewis list'. I'm not going to be claiming anything from that. But again, it shows up the unsatisfactory nature of the current system - someone like me, once they've got a sofa and a bed and some storage, simply wouldn't have room, even if they did want to buy more. Yet another MP could have a family-sized house in both the constituency and London, and kit one of them out in full at the taxpayer's expense. Also, someone like David Cameron can choose to have a top-of-the-market second home, and blow his entire allowance on paying interest on the mortgage - and then be given credit for not claiming for his TV licence or electric bills. It doesn't mean he's claiming any less than the rest of us; he isn't. It just means he's got lots of his own money to add to the pot too.

Sunday live

Watching Adam Boulton. He has just said that MPs get a huge amount of money going through their bank accounts, including their staffing allowances (which forms by far the largest part of our so-called 'expenses', about £100k p.a.). That is just plain wrong. We take on staff, tell the Fees Office how much we want to pay them, and that's the last of it. We don't have to claim each month for their salaries, we don't ever see that money - it gets paid straight to them. There's a debate this Thursday on MPs pay and allowances. I'll be in Bill Committee so will miss it, but the sooner we get this whole system sorted, the better. If Boulton can't get it right, no wonder the public are confused.