First, there clearly are a handful of those who rule over us, including former and possibly even current Ministers, who are likely to receive visits from the Police. Despite benefitting from an extremely lax remuneration regime, in the sense that the Green Book afforded a wide measure of discretion and its rules were very loosely applied, it seems there are a few Members who, to borrow a phrase from the late Alan Clark, excercised economy with the the actualité. I hope those who have defrauded taxpayers receive custodial sentences. I've heard that Ford Open Prison is the establishment of choice for such white-collar crimes.
Second, it's clear that the Green Book and the culture that surrounded it, were crafted in such as way as to give Members of Parliament the maximum possible income consistent with a headline salary of £64,766. They were even exempt from wide-ranging aspects of the tax system, and enjoyed a pensions regime that is illegal in the private, and even public, sectors. I keep using the past tense; technically, the Green Book and tax and pension breaks remain in force, though there appears to be all-party consensus that change is needed.
A cynic might suggest that, until Freedom of Information campaigner Heather Brooke forced Parliament into a disclosure process and an un-named source forestalled the process by selling the revelations to the Telegraph, there has been something approaching a conspiracy of silence to encourage the British public to believe that their elected representatives earned 'only' a little more than two and a half times the national average full-time salary.
And what politician would have dared be the first to propose that a back-bench MP's labour was worth more than that figure? While many on both sides of the House may have agreed with this sentiment, the first to express it risked accusations of fat-cattery. But now the truth is in the public domain, perhaps it opens the door to a constructive, unemotional discussion about the appropriate level of remuneration for Parliamentarians.
As the Taxpayers' Alliance has demonstrated, once allowances and tax breaks are taken into account, the truth is that most MPs have been collecting at least four times the average wage. For a politician who knows how to play the system and benefit from flipping and the associated CGT break, and who employs family members up to the £100k annual limit, it can be very much more lucrative even than this. I'd be interested to see a true calculation of the average annual cost of running a Member of Parliament: salary, NICs, pension, staff, accommodation, expenses - the lot. I bet it's not far short of a quarter of a million pounds. And I bet that three-quarters of it, maybe more, finds its way, directly or indirectly, into their pockets.
This blog is about Conservatism and social justice, the latter being a concept to which the Left likes to lay claim, but which I believe more properly belongs with my party, and which I wish to do my little bit to help to rehabilitate. For me, social justice is not about creating equality or even, necessarily, eliminating poverty, because a just and ordered society is one in which there exist incentives for self-sufficiency and self advancement and, yes, disincentives for wilful failure to display such characteristics. But above all, social justice is about eliminating obstacles to self-fulfilment. Never should a person's parentage limit their options. This isn't just a moral issue - if people's potential is unrealised, society as a whole loses out.
In the context of MPs' pay, if we're to have a socially representative Parliament, politicians' remuneration should be set at a level that appeals not only to the independently wealthy, and those who are on low incomes before standing for election, but also those who come from modest backgrounds but, thanks to intelligence and hard work, are now relatively well rewarded.
For this reason, unfashionable though it may be to say this in the context of the current furore, I wouldn't like to see MPs put on a flat rate of a little under £65k a year and no fringe benefits. Why? Because I believe that the financial sacrifice involved in pursuing such a career would be unacceptable to a lot of candidates for election, probably including myself. Granted, Labour would have no difficulties filling its benches: there are plenty of middle-ranking public sector workers and Trades Union officials on that kind of money who would welcome an opportunity to spend our money on a bigger stage. And my own party would still be able to field candidates with family wealth, or who had been fortunate enough to build up and sell businesses early enough in their careers to be left with sufficient time to pursue a life in politics.
But there exists a band of actual and prospective MPs, not only from my party but also from the LibDems - for instance, Vince Cable, formerly Chief Economist of Shell - who have left well-paid jobs in the private sector, but whose previous roles have not been so well remunerated that they have become independently wealthy, for whom the salary of a back-bench MP, if taken in isolation, represents an unrealistic diminution in their, and perhaps more important, their loved ones' standard of living.
So should the current Green Book be replaced with a new set of rules, this time more transparent, with less 'wriggle room', but equally generous. No. Because it's bad for democracy. Take, for instance, the issue of second homes. There are many MPs who represent constituencies within commuting distance of London who choose to have bolt-holes in the capital because the system pays them to do so. Eliminate the John Lewis list and simply pay their mortgages and the problem remains. Better to limit the option of State-funded London accommodation to those for whom commuting is impractical, because their electorate is better served by their representatives spending as much time as possible in the communities they represent and experiencing the same public services, so far as is achievable, as the electorate.
If the rush-hour trains from, say, Watford Junction to Euston are perpetually so full, much better that local MP Claire Ward experience this first-hand every day that Parliament is in session (which is a lot less commuting than many of her constituents must endure) than that she be isolated from the problem by a combination of a smart weekday flat in Kennington and a secretary who sends a standard response to constituents who complain about the trains.
Some years ago, I found myself in a business meeting with a former Cabinet Minister. I found him uncouth and lacking in social skills, not least because he kept answering his mobile phone, which he declined to switch off. But I'm grateful for the experience, because it gave me the chance to eavesdrop a series of conversations. Reading between the lines, the wife of a prominent Labour politician (I won't name her, she's entitled to her privacy) had been diagnosed with cancer, the local NHS Trust had been unable to see her promptly, the husband had been tempted to go private, and my contact pulled a few favours so she could see a top consultant - presumably, a Party member, or well-wisher - quickly. I don't know whether he thought this would impress me, make me think he was a player, and a fixer, but it had the opposite effect: it merely reinforced my profound belief in the corrupt values at the heart of New Labour.
I offer the above anecdote as an illustration of my view that it's unhelpful for there to be this feather-bedded Westminster elite, physically removed from the experiences and opinions of their electorates. The current scandal has occurred, in part, because MPs became too remote from the reality of how the public lives, and how we feel. Had they been better at understanding the public's expectations of them, they would never have constructed such a regime, nor interpreted its rules so loosely.
If there's one good thing that could, perhaps, come from the past week's revelations, it's a commitment for MPs to become more closely attuned to the interests of their electorates. This touches not only upon the issue of how they live their lives, but the backgrounds from which they're drawn.
Most people in the UK today are, broadly speaking, middle class, and work in offices, for private sector employers. Most Labour MPs, I would venture to suggest, are also middle class, but very few of them have worked for any length of time in the private sector; and if they have then, atypically of their voters, they've been active Trades Unionists and officials. Today, many Conservative MPs come much closer to the profile of their constituents, though, unhelpfully, the expenses storm has highlighted a few instances of wealth and privilege that don't help its image.
Were I working in HR, I'd probably recommend setting the salary of a Member of Parliament at a level comparable to other jobs that require similar skills, in order that nobody with the kind of experience we as voters would like the Commons to attract is dissuaded from standing for election, while depriving them of every possible benefit-in-kind that unnecessarily isolates them from the world of their electorates.
It seems to me that the job that has most in common with that of a back-bencher is probably a barrister: indeed, there are many former briefs on both sides of the House, and, notably, our previous Prime Minister hailed from that profession. Typical salary? Perhaps £100-150k for someone with 10 or more years' experience. They can earn £300k-plus by taking silk - the equivalent of becoming a Cabinet Minister, perhaps?. Other similar roles might include the Chief Executive of a district council or a college Principal. As with the barrister, these kinds of roles offer salaries of around, or a little more than, £100k.
So I'd like to see MPs of all parties arguing for a basic salary of perhaps £100-120k a year, combined with the total elimination of back-door payments. If they live beyond commuting range of London, they can rent flats in the capital judged sufficient for their needs, but no more than that, and they should be prevented from paying more (or less) than market rate, or renting from unconnected parties. If they require staff, let them make the case for the Fees Office, which should then engage those employees directly. Should a Member of Parliament's spouse, partner, child, other relative, lover or friend wish to apply for such a role, there should be an open and transparent recruitment process and the expectation should be that the appointee will be monitored closely to ensure that the work is real and that value is being delivered. And as for expenses, living costs are out; necessary incremental expenditure only should be reclaimed, and all claims should be examined, and if they're found to be fraudulent, dismissal should be high on the list of possible outcomes.
In the current climate, which David Cameron rightly described this week as 'a time when the public sector will be expected to do more, for less', there's a risk that even the above will be perceived by the public to be too generous. I'd like to offer them something in return, that would result in a step change in the cost of running Parliament - and, into the bargain, would further improve the functioning of the Commons: fewer MPs.
Apparently India has only 100 more Members of Parliament than the UK, for a population of 1.2 billion. There are around 60 million people in the UK, so on the same basis, we'd have just 35 MPs. That may be too few, but who's to say that the current 646 is the optimum number? There are some constituencies, especially in Wales, whose populations are up to a third lower than the average; there are also towns, cities and boroughs whose populations think of themselves as a single community but are divided arbitrarily into two or more constituencies. I'm on the fence about proportional representation, but I wonder whether re-drawing the map based on identifiable communities and geographical boundaries then varying the number of MPs for each constituency in proportion to population levels might not lead to a more representative system, and a much smaller lower house.
Setting aside questions of cost and effectiveness, it's clear that something has to be done about the current boundaries: depending on the level of support for the LibDems at the next General Election, it has been estimated that the Conservative share of vote needs to exceed Labour's by six percent simply for us to equal their number of MPs; winning an overall majority could require a lead of nine percent.
Talking of a General Election, it's now not much more than a year away, tops. Fantastic! A chance to rout this smug, complacent, corrupt bunch. The local council and European Parliament elections on 4 June will be interesting. There are mutterings that if Labour finishes third in the latter, which is possible, there will be a leadership challenge. Let's hope this doesn't happen: while Brown will clearly be a casualty of this scandal, better in a year's time than now, as he is currently doing so much good for my party.
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