Oct 2009 29

Oh Lordy5

It is reported today that now we have seen some strong recommendations coming out of the Kelly Inquiry, 'Peers expenses will be reduced'. Although granted not by much. The daily allowance will go from a current maximum £174 to around £140, although a final decision has not been made on this. Perhaps more importantly in the long run though, and more key for better accountability, is that Peers will have to start producing receipts for their expenditure, which they haven't had to up until now.

The Senior Salaries Review Body has clearly decided that it better toughen up quicksmart and try and get some dusty, resilient old Lords to see the need for change. Good luck to them, I say. It would indeed  be remarkably inconsistent for the MPs to have to become totally transparent and the Lords to get away with pocketing hundreds of punds of taxpayers' cash with not so much as an explanation of what vital expenditure it went towards.

The House of Lords could actually do with their very own Sir Thomas Legg to review all individual expense claims and ask for repayment of taxpayers’ money where those claims have been illegitimately made. Like it or not, the Lords must come to terms with the fact that their allowances come out of the pockets of taxpayers, and their devil-may-care attitude towards transparency and accountability simply will not wash any longer. Some of the worst examples of extravagance and personal enrichment through the expenses system have come out of the House of Lords, and yet there has not been any whole scale reform of that same system, so hopefully this will be the start of one. Many taxpayers will feel the Lords have shown a disregard for their money, and a disrespect for their views which have been so audibly voiced over the MPs’ expenses scandal. Many Lords do not claim any expenses or allowances, and do a fantastic job for our country, but in the wake of Baroness Uddin and Lobbygate we need to mitigate for the worst and cleaning up expenses is a good place to get the wheels of reform in motion.

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  • Brian D Evans

    Dear Sir
    It seems to me that the MPs who have seriously defrauded the Taxpayer with their outrageous claims seem to be on the verge of being let off without any real punishment. Many of them should be facing criminal charges for their actions.
    I would suggest that the Taxpayers Alliance should pick up the gauntlet on behalf of us taxpayers and take out private prosecutions against them. I am sure that members of the public would be only to pleased to help fund such private prosecutions. There should be no hiding places for these serial offending MPs. Had I or any other member of the public have committed such serious breaches of the criminal law, them without doubt we would soon find ourselves up before the courts.
    Many thanks for what you do on behalf of us Taxpayers.
    Bbrian Evans

  • Mark Stringer

    I agree whole heartedly that a private prosecution should be made with support from the TPA. I would gladly make a contribution.

  • Peter Faulkner

    Seems to me that a poll of TPA members to see how many would contribute to legal action would be a great idea. If the response is good enough, let MPs know about it, and scare the pants off those who think they’ve dodged the bullet.

  • http://www.properpolicing.org.uk Mike Cross

    I thought that we, via the Daily Mail campaign, had raised over £100,000 towards private prosecutions. The TPA need to find lawyers who care enough about our democarcy to do the work for far less than the outragoeus fees they normally charge, particularly funded by state legal aid! The greed of Lawyers and bankers far outstrips that of the MPs mainly because we and the system gives them much greater opportunities. With this proviso I agree with the above comments and Susie’s proposals for a similar enquiry and changes in the Lords. As all the MPs are obviously guilty they will have to settle out of court immediately or face jail and costs against them. They introduced a law about 6 years ago whereby the state couild confiscate any proceeds of a criminal’s crimes this would seriously apply to some of the properties of many MPs

  • http://knifecrime.blogspot.com mark. chapman

    As a blogger for a popular anti-knife crime website – http://knifecrime.blogspot.com. I’ve been reflecting on how the MPs expenses scandal is now harming the work of anti-knife crime and anti-violence campaigners.
    By far the strongest illustration of this, as far as knife and other violent crime is concerned, is Jackie Smith. Her perverse moral leadership (claiming huge sums of taxpayers money for a second home as well as the porn video fiasco) left the Home Office rudderless at a time when the anti-violence campaigners were building some momentum. I’m not saying that momentum has gone for good – but the behaviour of MPs like Jackie Smith has hampered the work of so many families, crime victims etc at a time when they needed people with power to help them push for required change. This is much more than letting people down.
    At the same time and for the same reasons, co-ordinated attempts, communications work and PR efforts to highlight and tackle violent crime seem to have fallen by the wayside to some degree at the moment because politicians have demonstrated time and again that they are more interested in themselves, their salaries, commercial interests, etc, rather than those people suffering in the midst of a violent culture.
    With the Government and opposition parties in disarray due to the corrupt parliamentarian compensation system they have been happy to be part of for years, these ego-centred MPs (I can’t call them public servants – they haven’t served, they have stolen) continue to demonstrate more interest in themselves than victims of crime and the issue of violent crime, sadly.
    I can’t really re-print my entire article here but you can read it in full here, if you are interested to consider how UK political corruption is harming knife crime campaigning – http://knifecrime.blogspot.com/2009/11/current-uk-political-corruption-harms.html.