LABOUR MPS are set to hold an emergency meeting next week once proposals to reform House of Commons expenses and allowances are published next week, amid growing fury about leaked elements of the plans.
The report from Sir Christopher Kelly, due out on Wednesday, will ban MPs from claiming mortgage interest costs; cut travel allowances; ban them from hiring family members and abolish a £25 a day subsistence payment.
However, the report is not to investigate the single most expensive element to the expenses’ controversy: the decision by some MPs over the year to list different properties as their second home.
This allowed those who did so to bill the House of Commons for repair and maintenance work on a succession of properties, but Speaker of the Commons John Bercow has decided that such an inquiry would take too much time.
Under Sir Christopher’s plans, MPs living within an hour of London by public transport will not be given any assistance at all to pay for accommodation near the Commons.
Currently more than 400 MPs claim mortgage interest allowance – up to a maximum of £24,000 a year – and Sir Christopher is to propose that they be given five years to unwind themselves from such arrangements.
Instead MPs will be given allowances to rent though, so far, it is not yet clear at what level, with some of them warning it will make it impossible for younger people from outside London to enter politics.
Meanwhile, Sir Christopher is to recommend abolishing an allowance, worth £32,383–£64,766 depending on the years served in parliament, paid to retiring MPs. Instead, he will recommend that it be replaced with “a small fixed sum, possibly a couple of months’ salary”, sources with knowledge of the draft report circulated to the main party leaders say.
Facing a question in the Commons yesterday from Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell, prime minister Gordon Brown said a statement will be made in the House next week after the report is published “and then will come implementation”.
Conscious perhaps of MPs’ mounting fury, Mr Brown’s spokesman said there was “no plan” to put the recommendations to a vote of MPs, since the Commons had accepted the Parliamentary Standards Act “which took the power to set expenses out of their hands”. However, the new Parliamentary Standards Authority will “consult” MPs.
Last night, several MPs who spoke to The Irish Times, said many were displaying “real discontent” and were ready to reject urgings that they “bite the bullet and accept this”.
Sir Stuart, who is a member of the Commons Members’ Estimate Committee that reviewed MPs’ expenses last year, said existing mortgages “cannot be disturbed” and MPs would not accept enforced redundancies of family members.
Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger said the taxpayer would be “the real loser” if he had to sack his wife, Jill, who is paid approximately £20,000 a year.
“She deals with all the things I need to deal with in the House of Commons and the constituency.
“She does everything to do with select committees and standing committees. In the constituency, she deals with all the behind the scenes stuff, making sure I get from A to B and she arranges my meetings.
“She works on Saturdays and Sundays, during holidays and she’s often at the computer late into the night. I couldn’t ask anybody else to do that,” he said.