LONDON LETTER:The British prime minister has been forced into a partial retreat as he tackles the issue of MPs' expenses, writes FRANK MILLAR
THE ROW over MPs’ expenses and allowances has turned into an unholy mess – one now proving “corrosive” of democracy according to communities secretary Hazel Blears. Not even his most determined detractor could suggest this is one of Gordon Brown’s making. Yet many Labour MPs fear – just as Conservatives and Liberal Democrats hope – that the prime minister is intent on turning this problem for all the parties into a personal defeat.
Mr Brown clearly thought to seize the initiative and the moral high ground last week with his U-tube announcement of a Commons vote today on a range of reforms, including the abolition of the controversial “second home” allowance. His determination to clean up any abuses in the system apart, Mr Brown’s impatience was easy to comprehend. Having resisted previous demands for more limited disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, MPs now face the prospect of every receipt submitted during the present parliament being published in July.
The wonder to many is that Jacqui Smith even remains home secretary pending an expected re-shuffle, following the revelations about the designation of a room in her sister’s house as her main home and a list of expenses (in the constituency home where her family actually resides) covering everything from a Habitat sink to an 88p bath plug. Ms Smith has not broken the rules, and – as former Conservative ‘shadow’ David Davis observed during the furore about her husband’s soft-porn films finding their way onto her Westminster account – a detectable lack of sympathy is explained by the fact that many simply don’t consider her a very good minister.
At least the home secretary has been spared the condemnation heaped on cabinet colleagues like Jeff Hoon for claiming the second home allowance while also enjoying the use of a ‘Grace and Favour’ residence in London. And according to the rumour mill this may be the least of it, although it is hard to believe anybody has managed to add a foreign home to the taxpayers’ bill. Whatever the details to come, however, there is evident panic that some disclosures could prove so unpalatable as to force unwanted by-elections.
Plain enough, then, the need for action to sort the situation long before the general election. One problem with last week’s initiative was Brown’s sudden determination to resolve matters in advance of this June’s local and European elections, and his readiness to act in a unilateral manner to that end. At a reportedly tough Downing Street encounter soon after, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders David Cameron and Nick Clegg underlined the need for cross-party consensus on the issue, and promptly withheld it.
Both Cameron and Clegg grasped that the public simply wouldn’t accept Brown’s proposed replacement of the second home allowance with a flat-rate daily attendance allowance – rewarding MPs, as the press chorused, simply for turning up for work. The greater problem for Brown was that he had already referred all these questions to standards watchdog, Sir Christopher Walker, for report in the autumn. Sir Christopher likewise declined to perform to the prime minister’s accelerated timetable, finding these complex matters not amenable to a quick fix. Combined with evidence of potential rebellion on his own Labour benches, Brown thus found himself forced into partial retreat.
The second home issue will now be left to the committee. The prime minister, meanwhile, has resolved to ignore the recommendation of the Commons own Standards and Privileges Committee and push ahead with votes today on other reforms affecting allowances for London MPs, the declaration of outside incomes, and the future employment of MPs’ staff directly by the House of Commons. And Brown will claim any victory as one for transparency in face of obduracy from the opposition, even if actually secured by Conservative votes. In the current climate, however – and with the issue of the second home allowance unresolved – it will doubtless ring hollow.
That will leave Cameron to resolve his own position and decide what recommendation to urge upon Sir Christopher. It will also leave Clegg out-front with his clear-cut conclusion that, whatever new arrangement finally emerges, it cannot be one which allows MPs to continue making massive capital gains from playing the property market at the taxpayers’ expense. MPs do need facilities while in London and it would be plain pig-headed to suggest they should be operating out of hotel rooms. It must ultimately be for them to define their role, answerable as they are to their electorates. Yet the Liberal Democrat leader surely correctly intuits that voters will be happy to free MPs from the burden of negotiating additional mortgages and property acquisitions when the rental market provides an obvious alternative. Either that, or as Clegg insists, the profits should be ploughed back into the public purse.