The Wardman Wire

Introduction

As the Wardman Wire contribution to efforts to move forward the current debate about MPs and their expenses, terms and conditions, and the transparency and reputation of politics in general, we are running an article series from a wide range of viewpoints on the whole topic.

If there is a single aim, it is to bring some light in alongside the heat. We want to generate a lot of ideas for ways ahead from a lot of different viewpoints and political positions. You can find the introduction to the series, and brief for the authors, here. I’m happy to keep it running while there people wanting to express a substantive view.

Dave Cole: A clear out then transparency

This contribution is by Dave Cole of davecole.org, who argues that - while our MPs are fairly honest - poor public perceptions need to be addressed, registration for staff members of MPs need to be more transparent and other allowances need to be reformed.

If it ain’t broke…

The great tragedy of the Conway affair is that most MPs are pretty honest. So honest, in fact, that it would not at all surprise me if the cost of the enforcement proposed by Garbo was greater than the financial cost of non-enforcement. However, the issue is about more than money; it is about the perception of Parliament.

For one reason and another, the reputation of Parliament at the moment is not wonderful. (Or so I believe - it may be that this is merely hearsay; I hope that YouGov or someone similar will do a set of questions on the issue soon.)

…perhaps it is all about perception?

An awful lot of this is a lack of education and the media whipping up apathy. I fear that these two travelling companions will be with us for some time to come, but I reiterate my belief that large sections of the press are damaging the UK’s democracy. Combine these two factors, and what is slight sloppiness by an MP becomes a scandal, an oversight becomes a deliberate omission and so on. We therefore need a system that not only ensures financial probity but is seen to ensure probity.

The first thing to accept is that, in the public imagination, political party funding, donorgate, the salary MPs receive, their expenses, allowances, the Conway affair and so on are seen as part of the same package. It is impossible to address one without addressing the whole lot as unless the whole system is seen as ‘clean’, none of it will be.

This is therefore only part of the answer; I have given some ideas about MP’s pay here. The salaries drawn by staff are pretty arbitrary and I would like to see greater regulation of the amounts they get. The question at hand, though, is who receives the salary.

Where are we already?

What is in the public domain at the moment?

Many of the staff working for MPs already have their names published on the Register of Interests of Members’ Secretaries and Research Assistants (Derek Conway’s entry as of 9 January 2008 is for a single person, one Michael Pratte, for whom the entry is ‘none’), so there is no immediate data protection issue. In any case, Dod’s Online lists their names and email addresses in just about every case.

Who should employ who?

I think it should be mandatory for all members of staff to be listed; furthermore, any close, personal relationship to any MP (and not just their employer) should be listed.

However, it is perfectly reasonable for people to employ their kith and kin; an MP’s office is almost a small business, where spouses often work together. Equally, it would be unreasonable and, indeed, counter-productive to insist that an MP who married their researcher (say) immediately dismiss them.

Subsistance and Transport

The subsistence allowance – nominally for food and so on during the day – that MPs receive is the next issue. This allowance dates back, I understand, to a pay cut in the seventies; the pay off was a rise in ‘allowances’. The best option would be to scrap those allowances outright and have the pay set at a given level. The same principle applies to some other areas.

It would be fairly easy to give each MP a London Travelcard, a season pass to and from their constituency and an allowance for public transport there.

Sadly, public transport in many, particularly rural, parts of the country is woefully inadequate and the only option is to travel by motor car. Given that private vehicles are used and that there is no way to distinguish between a litre of petrol used for visiting a constituent and a litre of petrol used to visit a relative once it’s in the tank. For example, I suspect that David Heath, the MP for the rural constituency of Somerton and Frome, does rather more driving than Gerald Howarth, the MP for the urban and suburban constituency of Aldershot. These are two random examples, but the idea holds across all the constituencies that represent the great diversity of the UK.

And Accommodation

There seems to have been some consensus (well, Garbo and I) around the idea of buying a number of properties for MPs. The mechanics could be worked out, but the principle is sound and removes the (to my mind) most egregious allowance, whereby MPs make profit from what is meant to be recompense for expenditure.

What do we do now?

A Parliamentary Two-Step?

What I would propose is a two-step solution.

Step one: An Amnesty for Declarations

Step one is an amnesty on political declarations. I am quite sure that there are a lot of skeletons in the closets of all the parties. I happen to think that they’ll be small skeletons, but skeletons nonetheless. Bringing them out into the open has three beneficial effects:

• Firstly, it says, in loud, clear tones, that the British polity recognise that there is a problem.
• Secondly, it stops the poisonous drip-drip of stories; perception biases mean that if something is repeated, it will be given more importance even if it is not the most important story (a much bigger scandal at Parliament is the lack of a living wage for all employees).
• Thirdly, it means the parties can get their houses in order without giving advantage to the other side, increasing the likelihood that it will actually happen.

Step two: Register the Staff

Step two is, as mentioned, to make all members of staff appear on the aforementioned Register; to declare close relations; and to acquire, in some manner, housing stock for MPs.

But who would be the Parliamentary Policemen?

The question then becomes ‘who should enforce the rules?’ I start this from the basic principle that the only people who can cashier a Member of Parliament are the voters of that MP’s constituency.

To give any body the power to fire elected representatives is inviting problems; difficult people can be tarnished and generally made less effective by making them go through extended accountancy procedures. Equally, it is unreasonable to ask MPs to submit themselves to a procedure where the judges are not well-informed.

The current system works reasonably well

It seems to me that the current system works reasonably well – it caught Conway, after all. I’m not quite saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. I genuinely believe, though, that MPs and the machineries of the political parties can be trusted to police themselves so long as the information is out there. They would rather catch the problem themselves and resolve it than have it done by a journalist.

But fix Party Funding too

All of this is pretty much futile unless party funding is improved. I am of the belief that Labour party membership and so party funding could be increased if the higher echelons paid some attention to the democratic processes of the party and the ordinary, rank-and-file member. The desirable outcome, I feel, is lots of small donations. That, though, is a discussion for another day.

Wrapping Up

A final thought. It was indeed cheeky of Derek Conway to pay his sons for not very much work, but it does not even compare to a letter of 1714 from Anthony Henry to his constituents in response to their request that he vote against a tax:

“Gentlemen, I have received your letter about the excise, and I am surprised at your insolence at writing to me at all. You know, and I know, that I bought this constituency. You know and I know, that I am now determined to sell it, and you know what you think I don’t know that you are now looking out for another buyer, and I know, what you certainly don’t know, that I have now found another constituency to buy.

“About the excise, may god’s curse light upon you all, and may it make your homes as open and as free to the excise officers as your wives and daughters have always been to me while I have represented your rascally constituency.”

It may be that Derek Conway’s greatest service to Parliamentary democracy in the UK was encouraging the others.

Dave Cole…

Dave Cole has always fancied himself as an evil dictator. Unfortunately, he’s allergic to cats, but he does talk to his bonsai tree. He lives in Westminster with his girlfriend, Alice. When not blogging, he is interested in hats and photography. He attended the LSE and currently works for a small PR company. His blog is at davecole.org/blog.

Tags: Tags: MP transparency, additional costs allowance, aca, MP salary, parliamentary pay pantomime, house rules for MPs[tags]Tags: MP transparency, additional costs allowance, aca, MP salary, parliamentary pay pantomime, house rules for MPs[/tags]