Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I would add that it is not just about the local media; the BBC in the north-east has taken the approach of doing league tables rather than any analysis of the information. Even though I have tried to FOI the expenses of the journalists on the “Politics Show” in the north-east, the BBC has refused to release them, and I now have an appeal with the Information Commissioner. If this is about public money and transparency, should not other bodies such as the BBC also have their expenses published?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to draw me into a much wider debate about public transparency, but this is not the right time for that. He will know that there are ongoing discussions between the BBC and the National Audit Office about various issues, and I am sure that they will carry on. I am not going to take his invitation to dwell on those issues today.

I want to return to the annual review that IPSA undertook. I think it is fair to say that it made some changes to the scheme and has made it better and easier for Members to operate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor said, it has effectively given us more discretion about judging what things are relevant to our parliamentary duties and carrying out our responsibilities. That then raises some other questions, which is welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who chairs the liaison committee, acknowledged the progress that has been made on office costs and on travel, although he acknowledged that there was work to be done in other areas of expenses. It is worth saying that there has been progress, although I know that many Members think that there has not been enough and needs to be more.

Members referred to value for money, which is specifically mentioned in the motion. It is worth setting out a little more detail. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central referred to the NAO report. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has received a letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General setting out the details of that. The NAO is going to carry out a study of IPSA, and the report will be produced before the summer recess.

An interesting fact of which Members should be aware is that the NAO is going to survey all serving Members of Parliament asking about their experience of IPSA and the expenses scheme. It is moving quite swiftly on the study. It is going to send out questionnaires this coming Monday—16 May—allowing us a fortnight to respond before the Whit recess, and it has asked for Government support in encouraging Members to participate. I do not think, having listened to the debate, talked to several of my colleagues and heard what the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said about his conversations with the parliamentary Labour party, that Members will need much encouragement to send back their responses. They should take this opportunity to focus on how well the scheme is working, including value for money and ease of use, so that the NAO can take that into account.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) on his excellent speech and on the way in which he introduced the debate. I hope that he continues throughout his life in Parliament to feel as much affection for all hon. Members as he expressed today, although I doubt that that will continue as time goes on. However, I appreciated the opening words of his speech.

I had my whinge last time round when we had the first debate in Westminster Hall. I also got very angry, and I still feel angry that, because of the activities of a few Members in the past, we have all been smeared. We continue to be smeared by the belief that we are all crooks, and after 26 years in Parliament I resent that immensely. We all found during the general election campaign that whether we had done something or not, we were all considered to be crooks. Someone came up to me during the campaign and shouted, “Thief!” If I had been a man, I would have run after him and punched him in the face, because I feel about this so strongly. I am not a thief and I have never been a thief. I object to Members being considered as thieves, because the vast majority of people in this place are nothing of the sort, and it is not right that we have been smeared by the activities of a few.

A member of my staff uses the online expenses system to fill in the forms on my behalf. I had not thought of the idea of one of my colleagues, who told IPSA that his finger was in plaster and he was unlikely to be taking it out of plaster, which meant that IPSA officials had to go to his office to fill in expense claims on his behalf. I wanted to look at the problems as dispassionately as possible, so I asked my member of staff about his experiences and to outline the difficulties he had encountered. He said:

“Although after the MPs expenses fiasco there was a genuine desire to create a new and more transparent system to pay Members’ expenses, I do not think the system put in place by IPSA is the best alternative”—

he was also aware of the previous system. He continued:

“The new system is in no way more transparent than the system it replaced, the main difference is that rather than submit paper claims Members must now submit them online. It seems as though rather than looking for a simple solution”—

several colleagues have suggested such a solution today—

“(such as daily allowances or issuing credit cards to Members for their expenses) an expensive all consuming bureaucratic monster has been created.”

Several issues have arisen after six months of the new system. Inevitably, Members allow their staff to fill out and submit claims forms on their behalf. The previous system did not allow anyone except the Member to sign the forms before they were submitted, but the new system places a lot of trust in the hands of a non-elected proxy. The way in which the travel card statement is sent to the proxy’s IPSA account, not to Members, is very time consuming and confusing. The Member travel card has the potential to simplify the way in which Members claim, but the way in which it operates only adds to the problems of the online system.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend also recognise that the new travel card system is far more complicated than the old system? Under the old system, we had a statement once a month that we had to go through to check that the information was correct. We then ticked it and signed it ourselves before sending it back. Under the present system, we have to provide the information in paper form and then put it back online, as well as sending in the individual rail tickets. Frankly, that is complete nonsense.

[Ann Clwyd]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is a very good point.

During the first few months of the new system’s operation, Members faced huge delays in getting any claims reimbursed. They accumulated large amounts of debt at the beginning of a new Parliament, and a great deal of time and manpower has been spent trying to balance the books ever since. This unnecessarily takes time away from other parliamentary duties, as has been pointed out. During the past six months, IPSA has twice lost or not received the receipts we have sent in the post. IPSA is adamant that all claims must be accompanied by original receipts, but no contingency plan has been put in place to deal with lost receipts. The old system allowed Members to send in photocopies of receipts, while we filed the originals for our own records. Members are now at risk if they do not take photocopies of all receipts before sending them to IPSA.

Communicating with or contacting IPSA is not easy. There is only one general phone number and e-mail address for Members to contact. We have all been put on hold for more than 45 minutes while waiting to discuss issues with IPSA staff and, due to a lack of replies, we have all but given up trying to contact IPSA via e-mail.

I am sure that there would have been many more Members here today if they were not still fearful of the press. We all know that whatever we say here today will be picked up and used in one way or another. Some Members who would have liked to be here to make similar points to the ones we are making are not here because of a certain amount of fear. It is ridiculous that elected Members of Parliament, who often have to stand up for their constituents, find it difficult to stand up for themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). May I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) not only on bringing this debate to the House today but on the considerable amount of hard work he has put in over many months to seek to redress what indubitably has been and remains a wrong? My hon. Friend has studiously given IPSA, perhaps appropriately, until all fools’ day to come back with a better scheme. Personally, I would prefer to see a change now, but I shall support his motion in the Lobby, if necessary, later.

I want to pay tribute to the staff of the former Fees Office, many of whom have been reviled—shamefully, sometimes in this House, but more particularly in the press—because of the systems that had developed. Those staff, known to many of us in previous Parliaments, were in the main diligent, courteous and careful and did a very good job. Some are now working for IPSA, but I happen to know that some of them are acutely disturbed by the climate of mistrust in IPSA that has been inculcated into them and imposed on them from the top. By the top, I mean the chairman and the interim chief executive. Let us now call a spade a spade and understand what we are talking about.

The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) said it was up to those of us who have knocked around for a bit to speak up for the newer Members of the House. It will not have escaped your notice, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am practically halfway through my parliamentary career—[Laughter.] Did I hear somebody say “shame”? On that basis, I believe that some of us have a duty to say things that young men and women who entered this Parliament for the first time in May need to have said for them but do not feel able to say for themselves. There has been a climate of fear and of mistrust. There is a feeling that if we complain our constituents will not understand and the local and national press certainly will not understand. There are some things that we must get on the record.

In introducing the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor said that he was trying to stimulate a measure in the interests of our constituents and in the interests of saving money. He is absolutely right. The system that has been imposed on us is wasteful, costly and bureaucratic and it is failing. We have to get that right. The interim chief executive of IPSA, in one of his many issued statements, said that

“the core of our mission is to support parliamentary democracy.”

Mr Churchill might have used the phrase “round objects”. I am sorry, I do not accept that. Our job goes to the core of parliamentary democracy, and parliamentary democracy is being interfered with by the scheme that has been imposed on us.

Let us be absolutely clear about this: not just in the last Parliament but probably in the two or three before, things went very badly wrong. Some former Members behaved in a way that can only be described as less than honourable, and we all need to understand that there was, and remains, a need for change. But change for the sake of change, on the basis of “My shirt is hairier than yours”, is not a way of taking the House forward.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) asked how many Members had been consulted before the new scheme was devised. The answer is none or very few. We have to accept that IPSA found itself faced with a well nigh impossible task, and I do not demur from that at all. It had to try to put together a scheme within the time scale that our Front Benchers on both sides of the House demanded—we need to be clear about where some of the responsibility for that lies. That was very difficult, but having said that, the people at the top of IPSA have chosen—I believe partly through arrogance—to ignore the fundamentals and not to do the groundwork and research necessary to put in place not just a scheme, but a scheme that worked.

I have invited the interim chief executive of IPSA, courteously and on three separate occasions, to visit my parliamentary office. It is located in my constituency, but it is not a constituency office. That is a fundamental difference. I have chosen to locate my entire business in the constituency. I have tried to impress on the interim chief executive the point that if a Member of Parliament has his or her office based within the parliamentary estate, and if all their staff are based there, all their bills for telephone calls, office equipment, heating, lighting, cleaning, office rental, rates, fire precautions—the whole kit and caboodle—are paid for by the House authorities. That represents a difference of about £17,000 a year between that Member and another Member with his or her parliamentary office in the constituency. That means, of course, that the information published today is hopelessly distorted. My telephone bills for my parliamentary office will be much higher than those of colleagues who use the phones here.

The interim chief executive wrote back to me and completely missed the point, saying, “Well, if you’ve got a problem with this, we’re quite prepared to review the amount that you’re allowed.” I do not want the amount that I am allowed reviewed, and I do not want to spend any more money. Over 27 years in this place, I have already subsidised my office costs to the taxpayer to the tune of a quarter of a million pounds, and I have done so uncomplainingly. However, I do not want to be misunderstood by people who have devised a scheme without taking the trouble to get out there, visit offices and really understand what the job of a Member of Parliament is about.

I asked when the interim chief executive had visited a constituency or a parliamentary office in a constituency, how often and where. Hon. Members may be dismayed to learn that the answer, which came after a freedom of information request because I was not initially told, stated that the chief executive’s first visit to any office was on 9 July, the election having been in May. That was to the office of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), where he spent two days. More recently—very recently—the man who told me that it was not possible to visit my office visited South Thanet, which is four miles down the road.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that a good example of IPSA completely misunderstanding how an MP’s office runs was its early diktat that it would pay only 85% of our phone bills, on the basis that the other 15% related to our personal use?

[Mr Gale]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I shall discuss the costs of IPSA now, because I am conscious that a lot of hon. Members wish to speak and I must not take up too much time.

I want to address issues such as IPSA’s extravagance and waste. The office costs issue is important. IPSA’s chief executive says that plenty of people in the public sector pay their bills and then reclaim the money. I am sorry, but I do not believe that IPSA’s chief executive pays any part of the rent for his office in Victoria—or his phone, heating, lighting and cleaning bills—and then claims it back. I therefore asked how much IPSA was spending on that. The rental for those offices, which are not on the parliamentary estate, as the hon. Member for Walsall North said, costs £348,000 a year over the life of the lease.

I am still waiting—IPSA is out of time on this—for a freedom of information follow-up to tell me how much IPSA is spending on business rates, heating, lighting, cleaning, service charges, depreciation and all the other costs. That figure has to be in excess of £500,000. I note that Mr Speaker has said that he wants IPSA’s costs cut to £2 million. If just the building costs £500,000, even before we have put any people in it, and if we now have to pay for the gold key online expenses submissions system, £2 million will not be enough, despite the fact that the old Fees Office did the entire job for that money.

Funding of the online key scheme is discrete; IPSA will not give the answer under freedom of information legislation because the information is commercial in confidence and providing it might prejudice future negotiations. What I can tell the House is that IPSA has entered into a five-year contract. I suspect it has done so at very considerable expense and with no break clause. So if we do revise this scheme, the taxpayers will find themselves paying the bill up to the full five years.

We asked the chief executive what the purpose of all the duplication is. Our staff spend six hours a week online, filling in forms on the screen, item by item and line by line. That is fine, but they then have to print the whole darned lot, back it up with receipts and send it in. IPSA’s chief executive does not consider that to be duplication, but if doing something twice is not duplication, I do not know what is.

Finally, I wish to discuss an issue that has been raised and is of grave concern to new and younger Members, particularly those with young families: the living costs allowed to Members of Parliament to maintain the necessary accommodation—I emphasise the word “necessary”—in the constituency and in London. It appears to have escaped IPSA’s understanding that Members of Parliament do work in the House of Commons and in our constituencies.

I know colleagues in Kent who represent quite large constituencies that have only one station, which is perhaps just within an hour by train from London. We need to understand that that is just under an hour platform to platform, not door to door. They do not receive any London weighting, any London living allowance or any accommodation allowance at all, so they find themselves, having come into this place believing that they have come here to do a job of work on behalf of their constituents, either having to pay to get home late at night or having to travel home before the vote at 10 pm. Where is the sense in that? I do not know of any journey time that starts when the train arrives at the platform and ends when it arrives at the platform at the other end, but takes no account of the time it takes someone to get from their home or office to that platform to wait for the train, to catch the train, to be delayed, to get off at the other end and to get back home or to their place of work. That is arrant nonsense. When I told IPSA that those people were being unfairly treated, I was told:

“IPSA did not consider that eligibility for accommodation could reasonably be decided on the basis on where the MP elected to live. This would have created a perverse incentive for the MP to opt to live further away from Westminster, in order to be eligible for accommodation. The decision was therefore taken on principle that eligibility should depend on the constituency’s proximity to Westminster. It is then down to MPs whether they elect to live close to the station within their constituency which has the fastest links to Westminster”.

In other words, if Members do not like it, they should sell their houses and move closer to the station.

I have been in this place for a long time, and I want to leave it one day knowing that it is in safe hands—the hands of good people who have come here for the right reasons and who want to do the job that they were elected to do. If they are going to be able to do that, they have to have the resources. The people who are denying them those resources are the people who are currently running IPSA. We have two choices. This House—this democracy—will either be the province of the very rich or juvenile anoraks with no experience of life, business or anything at all, or we will sort this problem out. As far as we are concerned, IPSA has until 1 April. It had better get it right.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

Wait a minute. That is so for the very simple reason that many people have a visceral hatred of both parties and therefore think, wrongly, that they are voting for another party that will do them some good—we have a different view about that.

I regard this as a lambs-to-the-slaughter Bill—this is why I insist on the threshold—because of what would happen under these arrangements to a number of Conservative MPs if they were to get less than 50% of the vote, as they did in the last election. I have calculated that 60 Conservative MPs had Liberal Democrats in second place. My sense of friendship for my colleagues suggests to me that putting as many as 60 seats on the line is a very high price to pay for the purposes of something so central to the coalition. The figures I have show that those who would be affected range from my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who got 34.9% of the vote, to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who got 49.7%. All those Members would be largely at risk, although some more so than others, and something will depend on the boundary changes. I cannot understand how my party can make arrangements that take those lambs to the slaughter. This is extraordinary and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s reply.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I am very interested in the hon. Gentleman’s point. I agree that turkeys do not usually vote for Christmas. Does he perhaps think that his leader has a plan for his party that he is obviously not party to?

[Mr Cash]

I have voted consistently against this Bill and I will continue to do so, for the reasons that I have given. It behoves some of us to act both with consistency and in principle against things that were not in our manifesto—in fact, it is the opposite because our manifesto declared that we were not in favour of the alternative vote. Furthermore, there was complete silence on the question of threshold until we received the Bill.

Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend can be reassured by what I said earlier, which was that pretty much every Member on the Government Benches, from the Prime Minister down, is unhappy about having to implement this judgment. We are going to have to do it, however, but he can take it from the fact that we are not very happy about having to do that, that when deciding on the judgments we need to reach and in bringing our proposals forward, we will take into account everything that he has said.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Two Durham prisons contain 1,700 prisoners, including Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer. In the Minister’s deliberations, will he consider excluding individuals such as Huntley from getting the vote in Durham? Will he also consider the fact that 1,700 prisoners getting the vote in a marginal seat such as City of Durham could sway the outcome of an election?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly good point, of which the Government are well aware—and these are all exactly the sort of points that we are taking into account as we formulate our proposals.

European Council

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am on only my third European Council, and they are rather more frequent than they used to be, but I do not think it is impossible to combine a strong defence of the national interest with building alliances. Everyone round that European Council table recognises that we actually do all have interests that we have to try to protect on our own as well as making sure that we are making the right decisions for the 27.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Given that negotiations on the budget are continuing with the European Parliament, will the Prime Minister give us one of his famous cast-iron guarantees that his Government will not accept an increase above 2.9%?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I can make is that 13 Heads of Government or Heads of State signed a letter saying they would not accept more than 2.9%, so it is not just my word but the word of all those leaders who have said that this should not be accepted. That is the best thing that we could do, and it gives a real chance of either achieving 2.9% or, possibly even better, a deadlock which would mean a freeze for next year.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

But it was suggested in the speech moving the new clause. The hon. Member for Broxbourne seemed to give the clear impression that he personally would favour a separation of powers, meaning that there would not be this country’s current parliamentary democratic system where we have Ministers drawn from this elected House. Rather, he would prefer Ministers to be drawn from the ranks of those outside the House, which is much more akin to a presidential democracy. [Interruption.] I may be misrepresenting the hon. Gentleman, and if so I apologise. However, if that is his view—and it is a perfectly respectable view—it is not one that I share. [Interruption.] I see other Members nodding because it is their view, and I understand that to be the case.

My second point is that this is not simply an issue about Ministers. It is an issue about patronage and the extent of the patronage of the Prime Minister and Government of the day. That is what we need to address, rather than the narrower issue of Ministers in this House.

My next point is that there is not a simple arithmetical relationship between the number of Members of the House and the number of Ministers: to suggest that there is is to reduce the argument and to take it beyond what is reasonable. Ministerial responsibilities must reflect what the Prime Minister and Government of the day feel they need in order to do their work effectively. There is a relationship between the number of Ministers in this House and the number of others in the House whose positions are created by patronage and both the perception and the reality of the independence of this legislature. That is a perfectly proper comment to make, but there is not, I suggest, a simple arithmetical relationship.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting, therefore, that the Prime Minister of a future Labour or Conservative Government, or indeed the Prime Minister of what we have at the moment, could extend the power of patronage to have as many Ministers as they wish in order to control the political process?

[Mr Heath]

As I shall go on to describe, what the previous Government did when they reached the buffers of the current restrictions was simply to create all sorts of fantastical posts that were not described as “Ministers” but were, nevertheless, an extension of patronage. We know what the Labour party did when in government and I think we can do better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I think it very well might not be; it is likely that at some stage in the future we will reduce the number of Ministers. The hon. Gentleman is refusing to accept that I agree with a great deal of the thesis that has been put forward.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?

[Mr Heath]

No.

Let me go on to the next point, which is the timing of what is being suggested. This is not the hoary old chestnut that used to be described by the former Member for Cambridge, Mr David Howarth, as the doctrine of unripe time—everything was always for the best possible purposes, but the time was never ripe for it to happen. I am not saying that. I am simply saying that various elements of our proposals for reform of the constitutional arrangements and for the politics of this country are moving forward in various pieces of legislation and at various times. By the end of this Parliament, they will be in place, but this is not the right time for this measure.

Let me try to make some progress. The Government are committed—as the fairer Members who have contributed to the debate have already recognised—to passing power from the Executive to Parliament. The hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Backbench Business Committee created by this Government, will, I hope, recognise that that is the case—

Public Bodies Reform

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

We have not taken a decision on the future of the Union Modernisation Fund itself, but my hon. Friend raises genuine concerns about the way in which the supervisory body operated. In the previous Parliament, I asked a number of questions about the publication of its minutes, but somewhat to my surprise I discovered that no such minutes were kept. That is the epitome of unaccountability and lack of transparency, which is exactly what I am seeking to address.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The decision to strangle at birth the chief coroners office will be viewed with dismay by many organisations, including the Royal British Legion, which campaigned for it to improve the coroners service. Can he explain why the Opposition supported the proposal during consideration of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, but now they are in government they wish to abolish the office?

[Mr Maude]

In government, you have to look very carefully at the costs and accountability. Ministers have not been convinced that setting up an independent overarching body of that nature is essential to the proper delivery of this important national function.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

It is pleasant to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. Let me say straight away that it is unfortunate that this debate is necessary. All of us in the last Parliament hoped that when we were re-elected, the issue described as “MPs’ expenses” would have been dealt with once and for all. Enough controversy occurred in the last Parliament. Let me make it clear to the chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and the interim chief executive, that I have no wish to conceal from the public in any way the amount of money that we claim. I am sure that that applies to other colleagues, whichever party they belong to. Indeed, I was one of those who strenuously opposed the attempt to exempt Parliament from freedom of information legislation. If we claim public money—and it is public money—the public are entitled to know what we claim. That is not at issue, and it is important that that is understood.

It is perfectly understandable that in the closing stages of the last Parliament, as you know, Dr McCrea, IPSA was unanimously agreed to without any vote. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who is present in the Chamber, put the reasons why a new body should be set up, which we all understood. However, what has occurred since we returned after the election has put these issues back on the agenda. The reason for that is simple: the system that IPSA introduced, without any consultation with Members, is complex and difficult. When it comes to legitimate claims—obviously, all our claims should be legitimate—for constituency offices and related bills such as council tax, rent, telephone, electricity and so on, it is difficult to get any sense out of IPSA.

The person whose title is “independent expenses compliance officer” was quoted yesterday in the press as dismissing the complaints as coming only from older MPs. I am not here to apologise for my age. I am no more responsible for that than I am for the colour of my skin, my racial origin or my gender. However, over a third—35%—of the Members are new to the House of Commons and they cannot be dismissed as “older MPs”. Presumably, those MPs coming to the House for the first time are somewhat younger than me—I would be surprised if that was not the case—but it is not a matter of saying that they should “get used to it”, because that is nonsense. Criticism coming from new Members is no less than that coming from those of us who have been re-elected.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I think that I am correct in saying that my hon. Friend was elected to this House for the first time in the 1960s. In The Guardian yesterday, Mr Alan Lockwood commented that most MPs were happy with the system and he made some pejorative statements. If he were to hear a complaint against my hon. Friend, or if my hon. Friend made a complaint about IPSA, does he think that he would get a fair hearing?

[Mr Winnick]

I am not going to take up what the independent expenses compliance officer said. I do not think that his comments deserve any response from me; they speak for themselves. However, if the situation has been difficult for returning Members—as many of us are—how much more difficult has it been for new Members? It must be an outright nightmare for them, and that is set against a background in which they would find it far more difficult to criticise the system because their local paper might say, “Look what they complain about the moment they are elected.” At least returning Members have constituency offices, however difficult it is to get IPSA to agree on rent and related matters. New Members have to start from scratch, without being able to go to IPSA and say, “This is what we want to do. Is it legitimate? Is it within the rules?” Those are elementary questions, but they will not get any answers because, at the moment, the system does not provide for anything of that kind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ann Clwyd]

I agree; and, by the way, I want to say to the press that we are not whingeing MPs. I object to that title. We are raising matters that it is legitimate to raise because they affect our performance as Members of Parliament. If anyone describes me as a whingeing MP again—and I do not know if any members of the press are responsible for such expressions—I ask them please to come and see me.

Andrew McDonald said in a letter to me dated 9 June that IPSA had met almost 600 MPs face to face at the induction sessions. I must have been at a different induction session, because the person dealing with my induction was a civil servant from the Department for Work and Pensions who is not even a member of IPSA. Where were the people who should have met me face to face? Were they the people who smiled and nodded at me on the way into the induction session? Will they please introduce themselves next time as members of IPSA, so that I can acknowledge them? It has been impossible, as we have already heard, to talk to somebody responsible at IPSA. Instead, we are asked to submit things in writing, which is time-consuming.

IPSA is hosting training sessions around the country for MPs’ staff. Again, I object that there is not one training session in Wales, so my member of staff is expected to travel to Bristol for it. That cannot be right.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the problem with the so-called induction system or briefing session was the fact that it was designed only to show us how to use an incompetent computer system? First, if we raised any questions, staff could not answer; secondly, the default position with IPSA seems to be, “Put it in an e-mail.” My right hon. Friend may have experienced the fact that even if we send e-mails, we get no replies.

[Ann Clwyd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The comments made by other Members show that we have all shared these experiences. Indeed, I can hardly sit down now in the Tea Room without somebody talking to me about IPSA. Of course they do, because it takes up such a great amount of our time, but it should not be taking up our time in that way. The organisation cannot even get our salaries right; it says that that is an administrative error, but with all the staff or accountants that it has working for it, how on earth can it make an administrative error? I suggest that it is totally incompetent if it cannot get the simple matter of our salaries right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

My view is that the basic structure of the Act is probably satisfactory, and I have heard no suggestion to the contrary. I just remind Members that, if we are going to have an independent authority—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Jack, sit down.

[Mr Straw]

No. If we are going to have an independent authority, we have got to give it some independence.

There are two fundamental problems. One is the structure of the allowance system that the authority has decided on; that is something that it decided on. Having done that, the second problem is the system of administration.