Pay not perks?
Should we give MPs a pay rise and scrap their expenses?
Gordon Brown has called for a review of their pay after another expenses row. All after employment minister Tony McNulty claimed £60,000 for a second home he shared with his parents.
The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith is being investigated for £116,000 she claimed. Nicky spoke to her on the programme this morning, but it's fair to say she wouldn't be drawn on the subject - have a listen below:
We also spoke to the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, as well as our Political Correspondent, John Pienaar - have a listen below:
Some MPs support the idea of increasing their salary and scrapping the allowances, but what do you think?
Pay not perks?
Jump to more content from this blog
About this blog
Subscribe to 5 live Breakfast
You can stay up to date with 5 live Breakfast via these feeds.
5 live Breakfast Feed(ATOM)
If you aren't sure what RSS is you'll find our beginner's guide to RSS useful.
Podcast
5LNPI: who would YOU give a secret santa to and what would it be?
11:01 Thu, 24 Dec 09
We asked for your suggestions for Secret Santa presents. If you could send a present to anyone this Christmas, who would it be and what would you give them? From unsung heroes who deserves recognition, to people in the news or the perfect gift for someone you know. You told us what you would buy for who and why.
Download or subscribe to this programme's podcast
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~14~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Nikki
I am so incensed over the issue of MP'. behavior ( and Lords) I have been writing to my own MP , Jacqui's office, Don Tuey(Green Book chairman , The prime minister,
etc etc.
The general gist of responses seems to be lets have a review of the facts and publish them in a years time by which time perhaps it will be fashionable to have a go at the bankers again. ie lets sweep it under the carpet
This morning during her interview Jacqui Smiith was able to hide behind a current "independant " review into the circumstances
Taking this one case; she was claiming her main home was in London with her sister and the family home was her second home.
This way full ACA claims were made on the second home. If she had done it the other way round she would have been unable to claim anything--her sister not being allowed to benefit from the arrangement. I rest my case. Fraud -possible, sharp unethical practice not befitting a Home Secretay --certainly
I have e-mailed her office three times suggesting her dairy be used to clear up the problem of her main home --no response despite her employing a full time office manager on £40K per annum
A whole load of questions in one case!!
Complain about this comment
simple solution to the 2nd home allowance....let the Government buy a towerblock of flats in Inner London, and allow MP's to have free use of a flat whilst they are active members. No need for allowances, no need for relatives houses etc, and no possible excuses.
Complain about this comment
Responding to an earlier comment that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, increasing MP's salaries would just result in higher paid monkeys, with no guarantee that a small proportion of them would not still try to fiddle their expenses.
Until you make fiddling a sackable offense it will never be routed out.
Complain about this comment
Nicky,
I completely agree with the comments earlier.
The public should provide accomodation close to Westminster for any MP who needs it; however, the properties are owned by the public and when the MP leaves office he/she moves out to make room for the next MP. Just like the case for the PM (except not quite as grand!)
Tim in Cumbria
Complain about this comment
If these free-loading fat-cats (No, not bankers but MPs) actually had to commute for an hour in their car or on public transport, and pay the costs themselves, then they would realise the hassle, stress and cost that tens of millions of us suffer each and every day.
I doubt they would last one commute yet alone doing it twice a day five days a week for, well, the rest of their working lives. Perhaps then they would do something about our shoddy transport network. I doubt it.
Saying that these MPs work long hours as some kind of justification for, in McNulty's case, 60K of Public money is just an insult to the millions of us who work long hours and then have to drive congested roads home or, worse, travel on buses and trains late at night only to get home exhausted, get a few hours sleep and then begin the process all over again.
Labour is no different now to the last months of the Major Government when the Public were tried and angry with all their snouts in the troughs. George Orwell was so right - perhaps a statue of him on the vacant Traflagar Square plinth would be a reminder to politicians, of all colours, that eventually the ballot box becomes a politician's slaughter-house!
Speaking of snouts in troughts - watching the TV footage from the US of US Citizens seeking out and protesting outside the homes of AIG execs who have taken huge bonuses is fascinating. What a 'wonderful' democracy the US is - can you imagine the reaction of Brown and Mr. Plod if a few hundred of us began protesting outside Fred's house demanding he gave the money back?
Complain about this comment
This Early Day Motion has just been published, submitted by Dai Davies, the independent MP for Blaenau Gwent, who used to be a steel worker in South Wales, and is a solid trades unionist. It will be interesting to see who else signs up.
Dr David Lowry
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmedm/90323e01.htm
EDM Number 1150
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF HON. MEMBERS' ACCOMMODATION 23:3:09
Mr Dai Davies
Kelvin Hopkins
Andrew George
* 3
That this House believes the debate in the House on 3 July 2008 on the Members Estimate Committee report on pay, expenses and accommodation of hon. Members did not arrive at a solution that will gain public support for the way in which the Additional Costs Allowance is to be allocated in the future; notes that 415 hon. Members have an existing mortgage, the interest on which is paid by the Department of Resources and therefore from the public purse; and further believes the wholesale ownership of these properties is preferable but if this cannot be achieved then hon. Members should be allowed voluntarily to sign over their mortgages to the ownership of this House, and that an allocation officer should then be appointed to ensure that these nationally-owned properties are allocated on the basis of need.
Complain about this comment
I blame all MPs for the mismanagement of public funds with regard to pay and expenses and especially the ones who go on TV and Radio after another one is caught red handed and say that they personally don,t make this claim or that claim and that the system should be changed.
Who is going to see that the much needed changes are made if not these self righteous bufoons themselves. How can you claim the last two incidents by labour MPs are beyond reproach. They are not and for this reason they should be treated as fraud. Also,why do MPs have to work to 11 and 12 o-clock at night.
Complain about this comment
This is tipical of Blairs new UK. I think MP's should be only allowed 2 terms in office and this would weed out the wheat from the chaff. I say this because Blair came in with a landslide yet when mandy was booted out it was a short lived exit only to come back to a bigger and better job, this suggests to me that there is no depth of talent on the back bench. After that they can go into the private sector and see how they fair, i suspect they will disappear without a trace. MP,s seem to have no moral compass and are out of step with what is happening in the country. lets look at all the expense, holidays etc, then gut the lot.
Complain about this comment
Just listened to the Jacqui Smith segment. God, she really is deluded isn't she? Does she really think that people think that SHE is there to keep us safe and that that is all we are interested in?
FYI Mzzzzz Smith - you are an utter incompetent; a bender of the truth and a bender of the rules. The sooner Labour are kicked out the sooner you can go back to being a Lollipop Lady - a job more suitable for your (limited) skills.
Complain about this comment
I've wondered about this 'second' home' nonsense for some years now. When I lived in Romford, my local MP claimed £22k one year towards his second home. He lived 16 miles from Parliament Square. Romford is a Zone 6 London Travel card away from Parliament, which at the time was £5.90
So the odd late session may occur (rarely from what I've seen), which would be a £40 cab (I'm sure parliament can set up a good rate with a local cab firm), which could be claimed on expenses.
£22k whilst living in greater London. Nice work if you can get it huh?
Complain about this comment
Just been listening to Dave Nellist and was delighted by the amount of popular support he had. What a refreshing change from New Labour and Tory MPs, who are only interested in lining their own pockets, rather than serving the needs of their constituents.
Dave Nellist is the chair of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party - I would urge listeners to sign up to the campaign so that we can start to build a real alternative to the three main parties of sleaze and corruption.
Complain about this comment
Matthew Parris (Times Columnist) gave the game away when he labelled David Nellist (Former 'Real' Labour MP expelled by 'New' Labour) as a 'revolutionary' and outside the mainstream brand of MP's.
What he means is that MP's are only mainstream and electorally acceptable as long as they support free market ideology and the the general thrust of the constitution that protect it and of course all the wars that are being fought on behalf of it.
This is why any 'face saving' review that's carried out on this ongoing saga will merely fudge the fact that the reason why a 'mainstream' MP will always be on a higher income and allowance as compared to the average voter is to ensure he or she remains 'mainstream' and doesn't rebel particularly when £billions of public money is being pumped into the free market system without any House of Commons mandate whatsoever!
An MP's role today is a bit like the Monarchy, mainly symbolic where with the left marginalised they all masquerade in three 'mainstream' parties that are supposedly at odds with each other.
If democracy and free speech really existed in this country then there would be a Labour Party full of the likes of David Nellist's wading in against this criminal waste of public money injected into the system not for the good of the economy at large but for the reputation of neoliberal capitalism!
If the average layman has got to put up with MP's elected on this basis then they should all be on an average industrial wage with no allowances just to keep up with reality! As far as travel and second homes are concerned why not just convert the massive superfluous space in the Palace of Westminster into bedsits or dormitories to accommodate those whose clearly cannot travel back to their constituencies during week.
Lastly Mr Campbell, one of your last comments on the phone in this morning was that albeit the messages in support of David Nellist, left wing policies are unelectable.
Perhaps whilst this recession endures, if the BBC actually put on air left wing politicians (not necessarily from the House of Commons) and teamed them up one to one against the likes of Matthew Parris instead of 'mainstream' politicians blustering about nothing, then left wing policies might get some support!
Complain about this comment
Purvee Pattni:
I think that giving Members of Parliament more money, is a wonderful idea; And, stop allowing the perks.
~Dennis Junior~
Complain about this comment
Having read the above letters I must ask the question, do the MPs spend their salaries at all, or do we pay for everything?
I have a list of the things that they can claim for and to be honest it covers just about everything, maybe except the staff they need, there is no doubt they are in a very privileged position and I think this is the problem, if they were assessed on their needs of cost instead of telling us what they want, perhaps we would get value for money, their salary needs to be costed by an independent source, but not somebody who works for the government. After All who else works out their own. Please don`t tell me we need the best at the top, thats what the banks said, and thats an awful mess. The time has come to sort this out , not shove it under the carpet , which is the usual tactic.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS