One MP invented a second home and claimed expenses on it. Two paid themselves rent and claimed it back on expenses. One bought a holiday flat on the Isle of Man and called it his ‘main home’, so he could claim expenses on his London home. One claimed more than £20,000 in housing allowance even though he owns three properties with no mortgage, and spent some of the money on clearing moss from his garden. Another is Derek Conway.
Anyone who has been canvassing has heard the complaint that ‘politicians are just in it for themselves’. Of course it is not true, but scandals over MPs’ expenses promote a damaging cynicism which, ultimately, hurts the cause of progressive, interventionist government and favours those who argue for small government and fewer politicians.
While the six cases I have cited are all Tories, the next big exposé could be of a Labour MP. Gordon Brown needs to take urgent action – to head off trouble, because it will be popular with voters, and because it is the right thing to do.
When David Cameron told his frontbenchers to disclose the names of their staff in the wake of the Conway affair, Brown rightly trumped him by making the same demand of all Labour MPs. But staff are only one element. Both main parties are tolerating a situation where the Commons’ members estimates committee, a body chaired by the speaker and dominated by old guard MPs, is charged with coming up with answers.
I spent two days in February at a hearing of the information tribunal, arguing for the disclosure of a handful of expenses receipts which I requested under the Freedom of Information Act three years ago (the wheels of openness turn slowly).
The tribunal exposed a topsy-turvy world where an MP can claim for ‘plumber – £240’ or ‘groceries – £390’ and the money is handed over without the need to produce a receipt. If this went on anywhere else in the public sector it would rightly be condemned by MPs.
A senior Commons official told the tribunal, in terms, that MPs were trusted to tell the truth and their accountability was to voters at the ballot box. But if there is no openness, the voters are in no position to judge.
Action to tighten the rules and the auditing are all very well, but what will really deter dubious expenses claims is the spotlight of public scrutiny. If MPs had to submit receipts with every claim, in the knowledge that these would be posted on the internet – as happens in the Scottish parliament – unfounded claims would become scarce and public confidence in politicians would be bolstered.
Spin off
I don’t know whether it is down to the appointment of Stephen Carter as No 10’s chief strategist, or whether the mantra of ‘no more spin’ has simply run its course. But since the new year, ministers seem to have upped their efforts at rebutting unwelcome stories in the press. On the front line of a national newspaper, this takes the form of late-night phone calls from press officers to newsdesks saying, ‘Your story about us in your first edition isn’t true,’ or, more prosaically, ‘We gave you a three-paragraph comment and you’ve only used one sentence of it.’
Such tactics, which reached their pinnacle in the Millbank era of the mid-1990s, are a good thing for Labour and a tolerable thing for journalists, so long as they really are about correcting errors and getting the government’s voice heard.
The risk is that the late-night calls descend into attempts to suppress true stories and defend the indefensible. That’s when they backfire and the spin becomes the story.