The TaxPayers' Alliance - Campaign

Well done, Sir Roger & Co

Some of you may remember our involvement with the Independent Review Panel, set up by the Welsh Assembly, which was tasked with looking into AMs' expenses, headed by Sir Roger Jones. The review was established last summer, to deliver "a system of financial support fro Assembly Members that is fair and transparent and which represents value for money."

The TPA was invited to give evidence to the Panel. I attended both public sessions in Llandudno and Cardiff, and found Sir Roger and his colleagues open, polite, fair-minded and reasonable in my interactions with them. The review really was conducted in a spirit of dialogue, discussion and with the aim of finding the best solution that would give taxpayers value for money, allow AMs to do their jobs effectively, and restore public trust in their elected officials.

The conclusions of the Panel were released yesterday, and they look good. 

Importantly, the conclusions always and everywhere bear in mind that AMs must be financially enabled to perform their duties - that it's in everyone's interest to have elected representatives from every background and walk of life.

What's good?

The whole report is pretty radical, and will go a long way to restoring public trust if its measures are implemented swiftly and effectively. Pleasingly, most of the proposals we put forward on behalf of the TPA have been adopted: 

1. That all expenses must be documented, justified and published online.
2. That AMs' pay should stay the same.
3. No more mortgage interest payments are to be made, and that the Assembly should provide basic accomodation, so that taxpayers' money does not continue to be thrown down the drain every year with no realisation of capital appreciation in the properties.
4. If AMs want to purchase luxury household items, they must do so out of their own pockets.
5. The food allowance will be done away with, on the basis that even if you weren't an AM, you would have to eat.

As those of you familiar with our work will know, these are all core principles that we have been recommending at evey opportunity as ways to clean up the system and move forward to an era of increased transparency and accountability. I cannot fault the Panel on its courage in recommending these steps, even in the face of what surely must have been considerable political pessure.

What's bad?

Not much, in fairness. There is a time lag on some of these proposals, where the Review Panel has said the proposals should only come into effect in 2011. I would argue that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing now. Obviously we don't want indecent haste, and when it comes to living arrangements, I am all too aware that families, children and logistics have to be taken into account. But there are also things that could be scrapped tomorrow.

One such example is the employment of family members. The Panel recommends that while no new family members should be hired, existing ones in employment must be allowed to stay on. I don't see any reason for this - why not just give them 3 - 6 months notice, as you would when normally making someone redundant?

Another is the infamous resettlement grants. I have always found it objectionable that any elected official receives a fat payout from the taxpayer upon failing to get re-elected. This is both a reward for failure and a totally unnecessary expense. It's a very important part of democracy that MPs and AMs are punished when they don't perform, and get voted out. The panel agrees that retiring AMs should not get a resettlement grants, but if they stand and fail to get elected, they would still be eligible. They should have gone the whole way and scrapped this scheme altogether.

More of the same for Westminster?

In sum, this report is groundbreaking in its reach and radical nature. Sir Roger and his colleagues are to be congratulated on it, and the Assembly for instigating the process almost a year ago. Wales has led the way here, and will reap the benefits once all these measures are implemented and taxpayers finally have the transparency they so deserve.

We can only hope that Sir Christopher Kelly shows similar courage when it comes to overhauling the even more tangled and rotten expenses system in Westminster. 

Claim your free horoscope from David Tredinnick MP

It seems that David Tredinnick, the Bosworth MP best known for his part in the cash for questions scandal, has possibly outdone the moats and the duck houses in the ridiculous expenses claims stakes. He has claimed for software and training to make him proficient in...astrology.

Yes, astrology: the hocus pocus study of the stars to divine truth about personalities and destinies. As used by such other luminaries as Mystic Meg, Shelly von Strunckel and Nostradamus. One thing those three astrologers have going for them, of course, is that their star reading activities have only been funded by willing customers or (in the case of the latter) enthusiastic aristocrats who enjoyed having a barmy soothsayer about the place as a novelty. Mr Tredinnick, though, has charged it to the taxpayer.

His expenses claims feature bills for £210 for astrology software from Crucial Astro Tools, and then for £300 worth of tuition in how to use the aforementioned software. In his defence, he claims he had to learn astrology so he could assess whether Indian Ayurvedic Medicine relates to traditional English Herbal remedies because of his political interest in alternative therapies.

This is absurd. Leaving aside the utterly dubious nature of the idea that you can predict anything from the stars, still less that we should use their relationship to plants in the NHS, it simply is not necessary for an MP to train themselves up in a pet subject like this and expect taxpayers to foot the bill. If needs be, consult experts and critics on an issue you have been asked to comment on, don't take a professional course in it and bill the public. By comparison, while he has been busy tracking the predictions of heavenly bodies, he has apparently not bothered to set up a website to communicate with his constituents.

Here's an idea - you paid for Mr Tredinnick to become an astrologer, why not get your money's worth and email him your date of birth so he can do you a horoscope? He can be contacted here: tredinnickd@parliament.uk  

MPs' Expenses - the Black Marker Pen edition

Well, after 5 years of fighting, debating and legal battles, today Parliament has finally released the details of MPs' expenses. Or rather, they have released some heavily edited sections of the details of MPs' expenses. After MPs themselves have been allowed to go through all their own claims "redacting" information, there are some glaring gaps in what the public are being told. It turns out that "redacting" is a technical term for "obscuring potentially embarassing information with a big black marker pen".

The High Court last year of course ruled that all details of MPs' expenses claims other than bank account and credit card numbers should be released. However, Parliament then voted to overrule the High Cour and keep information such as second home addresses secret. At the time, MPs such as Julian Lewis argued that this was essential for security reasons.

The revelations by the Daily Telegraph of flipping and avoidance of Capital Gains Tax have demonstrated beyond any doubt that second home addresses are crucial to being able to properly scrutinise MPs' expenses claims. Of course, the fact that the Telegraph have published so much of this stuff already makes this heavy handed and secretive redaction process a farce that simply angers people more.

Given that so many MPs' details have been released online all at once, the help of TPA supporters in analysing and scrutinising what MPs have been claiming for is going to be really valuable. Please follow this link to the expenses website, and let us know any suspicious, absurd or otherwise dodgy claims that you spot. If everyone starts by looking at their own MP, no matter how obscure they might be, then we will swiftly get through the whole set, I'm sure.

Please send anything you spot, with links, to mark.wallace@taxpayersalliance.com

We will keep a rolling blog here to post notable examples:

• George Osborne MP: Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard has spotted that the Shadow Chancellor claimed £47 for two DVDs of his own speech. Ironically, the topic he was discussing in the footage was "value for money".
• Alan Campbell MP: The Honorable Member for Tynemouth has regularly claimed £200 in cash every month on his Incidental Expenses Provision giving only the explanation that it is "petty cash". It is remarkable that in effect he has been able to claim £2,400 a year without any attempt to say what it is for! Where did it go, Mr Campbell, and did you actually spend all of it every month? If not, what happened to the remainder?
• Julian Lewis MP: This long-standing enemy of oppenness has some very odd bits and bobs in his claims records. Having claimed for "20 calligraphy pens", he seems to have then used them to black out as much of his expense forms as possible - meaning that in some cases he has made the information totally incomprehensible. As well as routinely deleting the destination of his taxi trips, he has actually gone through whole claim forms and deleted the labels of what he has claimed for wholesale, leaving us with only the prices. Bizarrely, he even claims his membership of the Royal United Services Institute on expenses! Among the other "redacted" details there are a number of references to "subscription to BLANK". What could be so embarassing that he needs to hide his subscribing to it? Given the experience of Mr Jacqui Smith, the mind boggles. 
• Neil Turner MP: One of our supporters from Wigan has been through Mr Turner's expenses and has pointed some curious duplications. In some months, he claimed £400 for food, between £200 and £250 for petty cash and then claimed for specific foodstuffs and office provisions including coffee, Jacob's Cookies, a box of 48 four-finger KitKats and Millac Maid. Given that other MPs are trying to justify their petty cash claims by saying they were for coffee, biscuits etc, what on earth was he spending all the cash on?
• James Purnell MP: £19.55 for a 3 kilogramme jar of mint imperials?
• Gary Streeter MP: The MP for South West Devon apparently paid "Maradufu Christian Missionary Ministry" £1,000 a quarter for upkeep of his Parliamentary website. Weirdly, checking through Google Maradufu Christian Missionary Ministry does not even appear to have its own website - are they really web experts offering best value?
• John Grogan MP: Bizarrely, the Selby MP billed taxpayers £110 for English lessons for an employee who proved unable to communicate with his Yorkshire constituents.

To be continued...

TPA submits evidence to the MPs' expenses inquiry

Today, we submitted our evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life's investigation into MPs' expenses. The inquiry is pretty wide-ranging, with a number of questions to be answered on a wide variety of topics, so it's enabled us to set out a pretty comprehensive manifesto for how best to reform the system.

Here is the summary section of the submission:

•  Reform of the House of Commons expenses system must be comprehensive. Public anger
  demands reforms which will not only lower the overall cost, but which will also remove any
  potential for frivolous, sometimes even fraudulent claims. Crucially, as well as financial
  considerations all reforms must consider the paramount need to restore the public’s faith in
  Parliament.
• The system must be based on expenses – i.e. the reimbursement only of actual outgoings
  essential to Parliamentary work – rather than allowances. The term allowance suggests the
  handing over of a sum of money regardless of the actual cost incurred, which is unacceptable.
  All expenses must be demonstrably necessary to the carrying out of Parliamentary duties; they
  must not in any way be able to finance ‘lifestyle’ choices.
• There must be no opportunity for financial gain through expenses. For instance MPs should not
  be able to make capital gain on properties they obtain with assistance from the taxpayer; in the
  future accommodation expenses must be restricted to rent or the upkeep of taxpayer owned
  homes. From our own research we have identified the Olympic Village as an ideal place for
  housing MPs.
• All claims must be backed up with proper receipts; no expenses should be reimbursed unless a
  valid receipt or invoice can be produced, regardless of how small the sum might be. All legal
  statutes governing the use of expenses must be fully applicable to MPs. Similarly, MPs must be
  subject to the same taxes as everyone else; MPs must be subject to the rules which they
  impose.
• Transparency must be at the heart of any future system, not just to ensure that MPs abide by
  the rules in future, but also to allay the concerns of the public. A high degree of openness may
  feel intrusive to MPs, but it is essential if Parliament is ever to regain the trust of the people.
• Transparency must apply to all claims – whether approved or not – and will show complete
  detail. Only specific bank account details should be withheld from the public.
• Nor should such information have to be hunted out through freedom of information requests; all
  expenses information should be accessible at all times to the public, via the internet and
  through constituency offices.
• Reform of the expenses system must not entail a rise in MPs’ pay. On all counts – except the
  bogus comparisons of the SSRB – MPs are very well paid, and certainly paid appropriately to the
  demanding job they carry out. Moreover, the public will not tolerate a rise in basic pay to
  compensate MPs for a loss of expenses; not only would this reward MPs for abusing the
  expense system up till now, but MPs are already paid significantly more than their average
  constituent.

The full document is here. We have also applied to give oral evidence to the inquiry, so expect more sparks to fly!

Public Sector Transparency: We have the Technology

The whole MPs' expenses scandal has reinforced the need for transparency in public spending. The entire sorry affair, from John Reid's sparkly toilet seat to Elliot Morley's phantom mortgage,is a textbook study of exactly how secrecy breeds deceit. Happily, the internet provides just the technology to change that.

Indeed, the current scandal has had the benefit of attracting such public interest in the issue that a variety of very interesting web tools have sprung up spontaneously allowing people to analyse the data that is being made available. If the greed of MPs is an advert for why secrecy is  bad thing, the innovation that internet users have recently displayed is a fantastic advert for exactly why full information about expenses must be released.

Far from behaving immaturely with the information so far released, as some MPs have been suggesting, web users have been carrying out some great analysis to assess the value MPs provide. (Indeed, their professionalism is in stark contrast to the petty behaviour of some Honourable Members).

I've picked out a number of these tools here for the interest of this blog's readers. If you come across more, do link to them in the comments:

1) The Expenses Heat Map

This is a simple, and extremely user-friendly, device that provides a heat map of MPs' expenses and allowances by constituency. Deep red is the highest claims while light yellow is the lowest. Crucially, it is also clickable, meaning you can double click any constituency to find the name, party and detailed claims of the MP.

By totalling up all expenses, it does perhaps lay itself open to some criticism - travel will naturally vary with distance and so on - but it is an incredibly useful tool for sketching trends and picking out particularly high or low claimers.

2) Mapping Expenses by Category

Over at the Guardian's Data Store, Tony Hirst has produced another mapping function for expenses. Whilst lacking the attractiveness and utility of mapping across full constituency boundaries, he has looked specifically at travel and allowed users to switch between different categories of travel.

3) Parliamentary Aide

Whoever runs the Parliamentary Aide site has done a good job of it - a simple, well presented combination of totalising how much MPs' have pocketed in dubious claims versus how much they have paid back, combined with a feed of key news and twitter conversations. This is a good way to distil down the flurry of news about MPs' expenses into key totals. With new allegations every day, and panicked apology cheques being waived by the dozen, it's easy to lose track of the bigger picture.

One of the interesting things about the Tories' publication of their Shadow Cabinet expenses details was that they did it in spreadsheet format without £ signs, thus allowing and indeed inviting people to feed the data into different calculations and visualisations. This is presumably a foretaste of the "Google Government" approach to transparency that they have been promising. If so, it's very welcome and a sign of things to come.

People are keen to know exactly what is going on, and there is a huge amount of IT and statistical expertise out there that can be put to use for free to analyse the data. Let the daylight in.

Why we have called the police in to investigate MPs' expenses

Following the latest - and most shocking - revelations in the MPs' expenses saga, regarding Elliot Morley's claims for a mortgage that had already been paid off, the TaxPayers' Alliance have registered a formal complaint with the Metropolitan Police today. We have asked them to investigate whether Mr Morley is in breach of any laws, including the Fraud Act 2006.

After a little bit of confusion on the part of the police, who tried to suggest we should "complain to our MP", they have registered our call with an Incident Number (CAD2149) and apparently police officers will be meeting with Parliamentary Officials today. We should hear more later this afternoon.

This is a serious step to take, but these are extremely serious allegations. The reports about Mr Morley's sustained claims for a mortgage that he was no longer paying for take the issue out of the realms of greed, absurdity or flawed rules and into the question of the criminal law. Of course, anyone is innocent until proven guilty but there must be a full and proper police investigation of this matter to determine whether taxpayers have been defrauded.

As well as an investigation into Mr Morley, full transparency on all MPs' expenses claims must occur immediately. It is essential to accountability that the taxpayers and voters of the land should be able to scrutinise these 1.2 million receipts and invoices for themselves. That process is also essential to identify which MPs have done nothing wrong, and which others should be facing criticism or even investigation like Morley.

Crucially, one of the many public services performed by the Telegraph over the last few days has been to demonstrate how essential it is that when MPs' expenses are published the details revealed must include second home addresses. The Commons Commission's planned release in July would not have featured that information, and so without the Telegraph's leak we would never have found out about scams like house flipping, or Margaret Moran's dodgy claims.

To that end, the TPA has teamed up with Freedom of Information campaigner Heather Brooke to launch an online petition demanding full and immediate publication of all expenses details.

If the Police do not investigate Mr Morley, or any other MPs who appear to have broken the law, or if the Crown Prosecution Service is not willing to take the cases on, then the TaxPayers' Alliance will consider bringing a private prosecution. This is too serious an issue to ignore, and it is too harmful to our democracy to pretend that it can all be dispelled by waving apology cheques or claiming lapses of memory. If any of Mr Morley's constituents behaved as he has with their employer's money or with the taxman, they would be in extremely hot water - those same rules must apply to MPs.

Sign the petition for full transparency on MPs' expenses here.

- Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive, TaxPayers' Alliance

MPs' expenses scandal spreads and spreads

The latest revelations in the ongoing MPs’ expenses scandal revealing the indiscretions of the Tory front bench prove once and for all that the problem is a cross-party one, clearly so embedded in the culture of the House of Commons that politicians on all sides have been taking advantage of taxpayers’ money. There was an interesting interview in the Sunday Times with an MP yesterday about how that claim culture creeps up on MPs:

“When you are elected you are invited to a series of briefings by the Commons fees office,” he explained, speaking anonymously last week for fear of being ostra-cised by his fellow MPs.

 

“They are all about the different expenses: travel, office costs and, of course, the second home allowance. It is all very matter-of-fact, but what it does is plant in you the idea that there is all this money out there.

 

“For example, I had no idea you could claim back the cost of food. It seemed odd at first claiming for your weekly Tesco’s bill, but then you get used to it. Then the danger starts when you come to rely on it.”

Quite – and the news today about various members of the Tory front bench who have been shaking the money tree demonstrates how shameless some MPs have become, and how inventive people can be in finding loopholes and pushing at the boundaries of the rules.

No-one in the real world could ever have thought it would be acceptable to claim hundreds of pounds for overhauling their ride-on lawnmower (Alan Duncan), to pay to have 25 lightbulbs replaced (David Willetts) or to buy a second home just yards from their first (Francis Maude). Three factors have contributed to make MPs feel that this kind of behaviour is acceptable:

·         Secrecy – if MPs knew that their constituents would find out about all of these claims, do we really think they would have gone ahead with them? Allowing these transactions to go on in secret encouraged and allowed the abuse of expenses to become acceptable in Westminster.

·         The Westminster Bubble – it has been notable throughout this whole sorry affair that MPs who were elected more recently have been far more keen on transparency and far more committed to reform than a lot of their longer serving colleagues. It seems that if you have a recent recollection of what the real world is like you realise that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable to the public, whereas if you have spent a long period of time mostly in the company of other MPs you forget how ordinary taxpayers live.

·         Greed – we have rightly been discussing the flaws in the rules, and the weakness of Parliamentary officials who should have been defending our money, but at the final reckoning we must remember that none of these claims would have been paid out if MPs had not put them in in the first place. We could have no rules at all and a Fees Office that solely consisted of a drunk man with a pen and a cheque book but if we had honest MPs then these scandalous claims would never have been submitted – the core of the problem lies in the minds of those MPs who think it’s acceptable to milk taxpayers for all we are worth. Just look at MPs like Philip Hollobone, who have resisted the temptation to abuse the system and minimise their claims.

Credit must go to David Cameron for apologising straight away, and to Gordon Brown for eventually catching up, but taxpayers and voters need to see the full details of every claim, including second home addresses, and then they can ask each individual MP why they claimed what they did. There is clearly a range of different circumstances at play, particularly when it comes to people flipping their second home designation, ranging from the perhaps explicable, such as Michael Gove’s explanation that he simply moved house, to the pathetic and outrageous, such as Margaret Moran’s attempts to defend what appears to be a transparent attempt to bill taxpayers for structural work she didn’t want to pay for herself. We need to see the full details of every claim so that every case can be properly explored.

Just as the attempt to keep everything secret failed, so will any attempts to mutter a generalised apology or blame “the rules”. In a democracy, this matter must be settled between the people and their Parliamentarians.

MPs' Expenses: The truth will out

If there is one overarching lesson for MPs in today's expenses revelations (other than "Stop claiming money that you don't deserve") it is that there is no point blindly trying to keep these claims secret. It would have been better for all involved to have released the full expenses details when they were first requested four years ago, or even last year when the High Court ordered them to. Instead, their attempt to hide the details from taxpayers has made the issue much more toxic.

What is reamarkable is the reluctance of our politicians, when caught red handed, to say "Sorry". Even those who have broken the rules and had to pay the money back are self-righteously acting as though they are somehow victims of circumstance rather than would-be freeloaders.

The claims revealed so far by the Telegraph fall into three broad categories, which can be defined thusly:

Wrongful claims - AKA the "I paid it back"

It is frankly disturbing not just that MPs are making dodgy claims for money they don't deserve, but that on many occasions the Parliamentary officials in the Fees Office are approving them and making the payment, only for the MP to later have to repay the money. One example of this is Jack Straw's council tax - he got a 50% discount from the council on his second home because it was a second home, but claimed 100% of the tax on expenses. It is ridiculous that this claim was ever paid out - as anyone who has claimed a council tax discount can tell you, the amount you pay is printed clearly on the bill. This suggests that Jack Straw submitted a bill that read

Council tax: £100                                                                                                    
Second Home Discount: -£50                                                                                                    
Total tax payable: £50                                                                                                    

submitted it as a receipt for a £100 payment and the Fees Office simply paid up without question. Jacqui Smith's porn film claim was the same, in that it obviously was not scrutinised properly before being rubber stamped. It is not good enough to say "Oh, well, I paid it back as soon as I noticed the error" - why are MPs making such claims that are at best careless and at worst fraudulent, and why are the Fees Office okaying them?

This issue really gets to the heart of the two crucial problems with the current system:

• The lack of transparency makes greedy MPs more likely to try to get away with excessive claims and lazy MPs more likely to submit erroneous claims without checking, double-checking and triple-checking them. If they were going to be published, Jack Straw would never have dared make this dodgy claim.
• The Fees Office are as much to blame for the current state of affairs as the politicians are. The fact that they agreed to pay out on Straw's obviously wrongful council tax claim shows they are either incompetent or view their job as serving MPs rather than protecting taxpayers' money.

Ridiculous claims - AKA the "But it was within the rules"

All too often the only defence provided by Parliamentarians caught claiming absurd and ridiculous things at taxpayers' expense is that "it was within the rules". The public have rightly seen through this and would much prefer their MPs to claim what is needed rather than just anything they can get away with.

Bath plugs, gazebos, barbecues, antique fireplaces, ginger biscuits, Farley's Rusks (presumably not for the Member's consumption), nappies, pizza wheels, make-up, servicing swimming pools, underfloor heating - the list so far revealed is already outrageous.

Honourable MPs would not put in claims like this, and even if they did, a decent expenses system would not allow them to be paid out.

Playing the system - AKA the "Erm, no comment"

The Telegraph has a good piece detailing the ways in which MPs can play the system, particularly by playing around with the definition of their second home. Some have bought large household items at taxpayers' expense and had them delivered to their main home, assuring officials that they would ship them on to their second home at a later date - but there are no checks to make sure that is the case. Flipping addresses is also apparently common, by which an MP refurbishes one home with taxpayers' money, then designates that as their main home instead and designates their other house as a second home, allowing that to be refurbished at our expense, too. Crucially, these are the kind of scams that can only be revealed if the addresses of MPs' second homes are made public - something they have opposed on the grounds of "security and privacy".

One of the best things about the fact that the Telegraph have got the expenses details is that their version includes expenses - if we had all had to wait until July for the Parliamentary publication, MPs who had indulged in address flipping would have got away with it scot free.

Rejected claims AKA the "let's hope no-one finds out I asked"

One thing that is clear from today's news is that both the Fees Office and MPs themselves are to blame for the current fiasco. It is very revealing that despite the laxity of the Fees Office officials the detailed expenses claims apparently include a number of claims that even they rejected as excessive or unjustified.

David Miliband, for example, tried to claim for a pram and other baby paraphernalia, which is specifically foridden. One Labour MP is reported as having tried to claim £1741.50 for a granite work surface, that was rightly identified as over the top and unnecessary.

Given the crazy and unnecessary things that were approved by the Fees Office, it is a damning verdict on some MPs that they still managed to make claims that were so outrageous even the Parliamentary expenses system couldn't cover them.

Finally the Government wakes up on MPs' expenses

At last the Government has woken up to the severity of public anger over abuse of MPs' expenses. For a while they seemed to think it was just a nightmare that would vanish when they turn the bedside lamp on, but finally the true reality has sunk in. Harriet Harman has just made a statement in the Commons proposing a new system of allowances and expenses that will be put to the vote next week.

Politically, the timing is clear - they have clearly been particularly stung by the Jacqui Smith scandal, and what's more this is something to butter the public up before Budget Day. Whatever their motivations, though, if they do the right thing then it will be good for taxpayers.

The Government's plans aren't half bad, and they show that they are aware of the fact that the status quo is unacceptable, but they will need some tweaking and tightening up to make them watertight. In order to assist them in that task, here are the TPA's comments.

It should be noted that one benefit of the current situation is that these are interim proposals, which will be superceded by the long term report out at the end of the year. If they prove to be half-hearted or flawed then they can still be got rid of in nine months time.

Key: Harman's Statement (in italics), TPA comments (in red).

A. Flat-rate Allowance. We propose that, for MPs representing constituencies outside London, the Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure (commonly known as the 'second home' allowance) should be abolished and be replaced by a flat-rate daily allowance, based on actual attendance at Westminster on parliamentary and government business or the business of the Opposition frontbenches. This will be limited to the Parliamentary session or a maximum number of days.

There will now be no second home allowance or claims for food, furniture and fittings, fuel, mortgage interest, rent or council tax.

We will ask the Senior Salaries Review Body to set the appropriate level of allowance independently, comparable to those set by wider public and private institutions. The Committee on Standards in Public Life will want to consider these issues going forward, including the issue of taxation. Provision will be made for the long-term ill and maternity leave. The claims by each Member should be published annually.

A daily allowance system can work, but only if it is properly established and tightly policed. They have such allowances in the European Parliament, where MEPs have become notorious for simply signing in for their money at 7.30am then going home without doing any work. To avoid similar abuse in Westminster, MPs must be made to sign in in the morning and then sign out at the end of the day to prove they were actually there.

MPs must also still publish their accommodation bill, and be free to claim less than the full amount. That way public pressure will keep the bills down - if MPs are seen to be able to afford the Ritz with the allowance, then the allowance will be reduced by public pressure.

B. London. For anyone representing constituencies within reasonable distance of Westminster, the Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure will be replaced by the London supplement, which already applies to inner London MPs. The Committee on Standards in Public Life will of course want to look at the current Green Book rules on this and the SSRB should report on the level of the allowance.

Good. But how far will a "reasonable distance" be? It should be at least an hour's commute - most MPs within that distance will find that many of their constituents commute to London daily with no need for a second home.

C. Grace and Favour homes. Ministers who for security or other reasons live in so-called 'grace and favour' homes will continue to pay council tax and tax on the benefit of living in this accommodation but will not receive this new allowance. The Committee on Standards in Public Life should be asked to report on these arrangements.

Good, again. There is no way that the great and the good should be allowed to cash in for second homes whilst living in a free third home at taxpayers' expense.

D. MPs' Staff. In future all staff appointed by MPs without exception should become direct employees of the House of Commons, which would become centrally responsible for their employment terms and conditions, their contracts, and the payment of their salaries within the limit allowed - and will have the right to make an independent assessment of such contracts. The Committee on Standards in Public Life is examining the rules governing employment of spouses or other relatives.

It's sad that some MPs like Derek Conway have cast the whole system into doubt, but that, sadly, is what has happened so this reform is necessary. After seeing that abuse, the public are naturally suspicious of who MPs choose to employ and how they do it, so employing staff through the Commons will be a good, clean break.

E. Full receipts. There will be a requirement for receipts for claims for all remaining transactions (for office costs, travel, and communications), including those under £25. MPs' claims will be subject to independent audit by the National Audit Office.

This would simply mean that MPs would live by the same rules as the rest of us in the real world.

F. Transparency of MPs' Second Incomes. The Prime Minister has already asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to look into the issue of MPs and second jobs, in order to avoid conflicts of interest and to reflect the fact that MPs receive a parliamentary salary for a full time job. Meanwhile, there should be greater transparency.

This government has been the first to publish a list of Ministers' interests.

Where Members of Parliament have a second source of income from second jobs, irrespective of whether it is in their capacity as an MP, every payment shall be declared with a full description of who paid and what for. There shall also be a full declaration of the hours worked for the payment received.

I suspect Brown sees this as a way to get at the Tories, who are traditionally more likely to hold outside interests, but it wouldn't do any harm. There is an argument for having MPs with outside experiences, but clearly taxpayers and voters have an interest if their MP is spending hundreds of hours working for another employer. That must apply to MPs who also hold positions in Stormont, Cardiff and Holyrood, and particularly those with Ministerial positions in those Houses.

G . Pensions. We have taken steps through the SSRB to reform MPs' pension arrangements. In the meantime, in order to contain the cost to the public purse, a proposal will be put before Parliament to increase the contribution required from MPs by around £60 per month for the current year and to extend the scheme's pension limit of two thirds of final salary to all scheme members for future service.

This does not go anywhere near far enough. Like so many other public sector pension schemes, the Parliamentary pension is extremely generous, impossible to even dream of for most MPs' constituents, unaffordable and already saddled with a large deficit. The scheme should be closed not only to new entrants but to future years' service of current MPs.

H. We will ask the Committee on Standards in Public Life to look at the circumstances applying in Northern Ireland before final application of the flat rate allowance for MPs representing Northern Ireland.

Presumably by "circumstances" they mean the recent Sinn Fein controversy, and the rule should be that if you don't take the oath and sit in Parliament, then you shouldn't get a penny. No-one else applies for a job, refuses to come to the office and do it, then still gets to claim expenses!

MPs' expenses: a study in supply and demand

It strikes me that the rumours doing the rounds that someone, somewhere has somehow got their hands on a full copy of every MP's expenses claims and is touting it around the market for £300,000 are a perfect opportunity to teach our politicians about the principles of supply and demand.

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the probable illegality of pilfering these details from the House of Commons Fees Office, it is in fact MPs who have created this situation and it is in the power of MPs to dispel it. 

It's simple: by keeping their expenses secret for so long, they have restricted supply of the commodity in question - their expenses details. By insisting on secrecy they have also excited the demand by the public for the information to fever pitch. Prohibit supply, increase demand and suddenly you have a commodity that people are willing to pay generously for - and even break laws for. They haven't just created a market for this information, they have now kept things secret for so long that they've created a black market for the data. This expenses Al Capone is of their own making.

There is a simple way for Parliament to ensure that the cuprit gets no money at all, of course. They should release the details immediately, for free, for all the public to see. Flood the market, sate the demand, and solve this problem straight away. The Government is still apparently trying its approach of prohibition on things it doesn't like, and Jacqui Smith is suffering because prohibition doesn't work. Perhaps now they have personal experience of the laws of the market, they might start to understand.