Update on MPs expenses and the High Court
When MPs voted through the Freedom of Information Act eight years ago, they probably didn't guess that one consequence could be having to list their expenses publicly in the manner now adopted by the Tory MP Ben Wallace. On his website he lists everything from £1 parking fees to £250 in petty cash.
The latest High Court decision today (see previous item) will intensify the pressure on his more reluctant colleagues to accept detailed publication of the sums they claim as expenses. And it does further reputational damage to the House of Commons, which already been badly losing the public relations aspect of its battle to resist full disclosure.
MPs have become the real 'victims' of freedom of information. So far the government has only suffered mild embarrassment from FOI revelations, it's the legislators who are being hit (as similarly in the case in Scotland of the former leader of the Tory MSPs, David McLetchie).
The Commons has to decide next week whether to appeal or release the material about what the 14 MPs involved were paying out and claiming on their second homes. It remains to be seen whether the information itself will do more damage to the public perception of Parliament than that already caused by the Commons authorities trying to keep it secret. Since it would set a precedent for other MPs, there may be a few who would find it particularly embarrassing, even if the majority have little or nothing to fear.
The full text of today's High Court judgment is dismissive of the Commons arguments, much to the delight of the journalists who requested the information such as the Sunday Telegraph's Ben Leapman and Heather Brooke. There were two issues at stake. The first is whether it is fair to force MPs to release full documentation of expenses claims when they may not have expected the FOI Act would require this. The second is that invoices and receipts thus released could reveal the MPs' addresses and this would create a security risk.
The judges decided that this was not a matter of 'idle gossip' or public curiosity about 'trivialities', but it had 'a wide resonance throughout the body politic'. They referred to 'evidence which suggests that one MP claimed ACA [Additional Costs Allowance] for a property which did not exist, and yet further evidence may demonstrate that on occasions MPs claiming ACA were letting out the accommodation procured from the ACA allowance.' They argue that this means there is 'a legitimate public interest' in the disclosure of MPs' addresses' (subject to some exceptional security cases).
They only offered the House of Commons one concession - that if the 'deeply flawed systmem' for oversight and control of the ACA is sufficiently tightened up, then there might be no need in future for the disclosure of addresses. The Commons is indeed in the process of tightening up the rules. But that still won't affect information from previous years such as that involved in this case.
But as Nick Robinson reports, whatever the Commons is forced to do on the 14 MPs in this case, there are those in the Commons who are planning to resist hard the future release of any features of the expenses information for others which they assert could imperil security. So even if there is no appeal now, the issue may not be over.
It is particularly interesting to note that this is another case in which the High Court has backed the Information Tribunal in over-ruling the Information Commissioner. The Commissioner, Richard Thomas, originally decided that MPs should only have to publish a breakdown of expenses by category. The Tribunal went much further in insisting on a receipt-by-receipt release, and it is that stance which the High Court has backed.
Two months ago the High Court ruled that the Export Credits Guarantee Department had to release communications with other government departments about the controversial Sakhalin energy project in Russia. This was in line with the Tribunal and in disagreement with the Commissioner, who had supported ECGD's initial refusal to supply the material.
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Taxpayers wonder where all the tax goes. More and more tax is collected and nothing gets better.
In this country we have institutionalised greed in our Parliament. They're not the only workers who have to travel or have two homes.
Have they not thought about renting a furnished property like others have to? It must be great to be an MP and live the life of luxury.
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We don't 'need' to see the addresses. Let them edit them out (especially if thats their main reason for not wanting this information to be made public) but we most certainly do need to know every detail of what they are spending from the public purse. If that means putting up scanned recipts on a website then do it.
If the examples given of renting out ACA funded accommodation or claiming for non-existent houses is accurate then they should not just be fired but arrested for fraud.
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WE are the 'victims'
After all, if someone takes money away from you, without your say-so, and spends it on themselves in any walk of life it's called theft.
MPs seem able to do it with impunity.
Martin has no idea how tawdry and deceitful he appears - especially since his wife has gotten away with what most people see as a £4K fiddle, at our expense
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
My posts seem to go nowhere
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7. At 2:59 pm on 16 May 2008, chrisboote wrote:
My posts seem to go nowhere
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Whaddya mean? The same post (all sent within 2 minutes) by you appears four times. As the great David Byrne once sang
"Say something once - why say it again?" :-)
As for the Speaker, well a larger waste of public funds you'd be hard-pressed to find.
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Really good news!
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I don't think MP's can really complain, until recently they've had a much more lax system to contend with than in most private companies.
Besides as the Speakers case shows you can always bend the rules to get off anyway.
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Well to quote so many politicians - Nothing to hide NOTHING TO FEAR
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I don't want to know the exact addresses where MPs live. And there may be genuine reasons for not revealing these, although I suspect potential terrorists are cute enough tp find these things out.
I do care when they spend taxpayers money on things which they ought to pay for out of their salaries.
And I care a lot when they try to hide this.
I care even more when they claim their main residence as their second residence, to maximise the money they can make.
I care still more when couples who are both MPS claim for the same things.
Simple really. It's about fairness and honesty.
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opaqueentity is right: security need not be compromised in the rightful pursuit of accountability when it comes to the spending taxpayers' money.
That information can easily be censored and it is just another obstacle thrown up by the Commons, who do not seem to want to allow transparency.
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I love the idea that the main reason MPs give for non-disclosure is that they don't want their addresses revealed.
A bit late for that... they should have thought about that before signing their publically available nomination papers complete with their home address.
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I am delighted that they are now getting a taste of the disaster that they created! They were warned that this was a step too far but took it. Now it has returned to bite them.
I will be delighted to learn what my MP is spending my money on. After all he is paid a very large salary and seems to have an inordinate amount of extras I never enjoyed! He also lives well within commuting distance. Many people from his constiuency commute each day so why does he need a second home?
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How could MPs possibly claim that they are victims? People wonder where their taxes go...
Is it on expensive lunches? New ties perhaps? Maybe it was "urgent" that a coffee machine was bought.
It's about time MPs started being honest and stopped wasting public money as if they are the only people with expenses! I look forward to seeing more "necessary expenses" revealed.
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No one forces MPs to become public servants. If you wish to become one, and enjoy the extremely generous perks, then surely you must be willing to accept public scrutiny of your finances? This underpins democracy.
As if it isn't already enough that we are obliged to pay for Tony Blair's licence fee and John Prescott's paunch, we are then told we don't need to know where our money goes.
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Making all MP's expenses transparent is wholly reasonable. All public funded officials and employees should also have their expenses available for public scrutiny. The BBC would be good starting point.
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So Ben Wallace is taking £250 every three months, and describing it as "Petty Cash" or "Office maintenance". That's a grand a year. Do you think the Taxman would mind me having a grand a year in untaxed income if I described it as "petty"?
And what is "Personnel tax liability for Office Equipment" at £1900? Where is he buying travel insurance that costs £250 given that the only business travel he seems to do is in taxis and one trip to the USA?
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I work in the public sector (and no I don't have a gold-plated pension).
I have to justify EVERY expense, and rightly so, since it is the taxpater's money I am spending. SO what makes MPs any different?
By all means leave out the addresses.
As one poster has previously mentioned, if an MP has been found to commit what is basically fraud, have them arrested and tried in court. If guilty, then a harsh punishment is necessary. Other countries punish their MPs severely in similar cases, and it might start to restore some trust in Westminster.
MPs are there to serve the public, not feather their nests.
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I guess the point of the addresses was so that people could judge if those "second homes" were really in locations that would help them do their job as MPs.
We don't necessarily need the whole address to do that: the first half of the postcode would probably do. That can't really be a security problem: "He has a flat in SW1" or "second house in in OX14" would tell us all we need to know...
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This whole expenses trip is quite un-necessary MP's should be paid a wage and thats it.
Out of that they can pay who they want buy whatever they want and have as many houses as they want.They will have to provide their own pension arrangements out of this as well.
No allowances no nothing else.
This will save the tax payer a whole government department that seems to exist just dealing with claims.
Wages will go up by inflation every year based on the average for the previous 12months.That will save another load of paper pushers.
If they dont like the job dont apply.
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Take a look at 09 Mar 07 on Ben Wallace's page.
£500.00 Monitor at PC world.
This of course is not a computer monitor a but a nice (probably) 42 inch LCD TV.
I don't remember anyone giving me a free TV so why should they.
I am sure there will be much worse shown in the coming months.
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About time too, I don`t understand the reluctance to show receipts after all its not their money its ours , so we should know what it is being spent on , i must say I object to speakers wife paying for shopping trips at our expense .
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This seems little different to the level of detail I had to provide to the tax man before the labour party killed off my own small business.
In defence of MP's expenses I would like to point out one or two of them coming on to TV and Radio to say that when they had their second homes bathroom's renovated, they ended up with the bill for 'betterment'.
But Members of Parliament have only themselves to blame for the demands for openness. because for years they have clearly enjoyed a level of gravy train riding not available to the rest of us. Did you know for example that until recently "parliamentarians" had free parking at heathrow airport ? I didn't, until the bbc news website revealed the scheme, which had operated for some time, was being stopped.
It's things like this, the stuff we DONT know about, that needs to see the light of day.
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By objecting, MPs only make people think that they have something to hide.
I congratulate Ben Wallace on putting his claims on his website, even if some of them do seem a little odd.
And, as has already been discussed here.. for the 06/07 financial year he spent over £3,000 on his website... ridiculous!
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Personally I think it's an utter disgrace that MP's haven't had to declare their expenditure on our behalf much earlier, and this whining now is undignified and merely cements the idea inthe publics minds that they're sleazy con-men living off the taxpayers and claiming for everything they can get.
Unfortunately, this idea probably isn't far from the truth. Too many of them simply view the job as a gravy train, and if this initiative weeds out some of the wheat from the chaff then I'm all for it.
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