Parliamentary Standards Act 2009
Debate between Adam Afriyie and Bob Russell(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
I want to put on record my appreciation of the front-line staff of IPSA, who have to work a system that is not fit for purpose. In addition to there being costs to Members of Parliament and their staff, the National Audit Office believes that in 38% of cases the cost of processing a claim is higher than the amount for which the claim is being made. Will my hon. Friend confirm that?
Adam Afriyie
That is a fascinating statistic. We had a session in which we looked in particular at value for money, and that message came through loud and clear. Anyone in the House with a background in business or in a medium-sized organisation that runs an expenses system will recognise that something needs to be looked at if the cost of processing a large minority of the claims is higher than the value of the claims themselves. Some of the recommendations are very much directed at helping IPSA to move to a system that is less expensive to operate and in which taxpayers’ resources are being spent as they would wish: on activities such as supporting democracy and ensuring that constituents are serviced, rather than supporting unnecessary bureaucracy.
Adam Afriyie
That is another point very well made. I hope that the direction of travel in the recommendations will precipitate such an outcome when IPSA reflects on them.
I draw everyone’s attention to the survey in annex 1, on page 66, which contains some telling statistics. We conducted a brief survey towards the end of the inquiry to ensure that we were picking up contemporary, rather than historical, points of view of Members of Parliament. There are some striking figures. For example, 81% of MPs do not believe that the board of IPSA has been effective in supporting MPs in conducting their duties. Even if the intention was to be supportive, it is quite telling that over 80% of MPs do not think that it is. Another fascinating statistic is that 93% of MPs are subsidising their work here. That is a contemporary figure from two or three weeks ago.
Bob Russell
Does my hon. Friend know of any other profession or occupation—perhaps the world of journalism? —where 93% of the work force are subsidising the work that they do?
Adam Afriyie
It is incredibly unlikely. As I say, 93% are subsidising their work to some degree—some, about one in 10, to the tune of over £10,000 a year. One of the main reasons cited, by 83% of MPs, is that they are trying to protect their reputation. The bi-monthly publication cycle allows for misleading comparisons. The report calls for more transparency—perhaps we could publish in real time. However, the misleading bi-monthly publication routine means that MPs are trying to protect their reputation, which is the thing most valuable to them. Let us not think that that is a selfish act; it is an act that works to protect our democracy. If individual MPs are constantly being lambasted in their local media for making legitimate claims but having false comparisons made, that undermines democracy overall and harms the reputation of Parliament. That is why one of our recommendations is that IPSA should become a lot more transparent in its publications.
We make a recommendation about annual publications. At the moment, it is incredibly difficult for the public to see what is going on. They have to print out one page and then another, and try to compare them. That does not work, so we recommend that the annual publication is searchable and easily accessible to the public so that they can make sensible comparisons from year to year, rather than misleading ones drawn from the bi-monthly publications.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
As a member of the Committee, I would like to put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend for his patience in trying to reconcile the views of the Committee. On the point he is making, in addition to the separation of IPSA’s regulatory and administrative functions, was not another stark factor presented to the Committee the extraordinarily expensive way IPSA administered a relatively small number of transactions and the fact that many other organisations, whether inside the House of Commons or elsewhere, could do that for much better value for money for the taxpayer?
Adam Afriyie
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) was incredibly helpful during the Committee’s deliberations, for which I thank him. We all have strong views on these matters, some of which will be very different, so I thank him in particular because we all moderated our views somewhat to look at the evidence and see where it pointed us. We came to a good conclusion on how the system can be become more efficient. I should also point out that there have been arguments from the press again, and unfortunately from elsewhere, suggesting that somehow the report wants the House to regain control of expenses. That is utter nonsense. There is nothing in the report that seeks to do that. If there is any lack of clarity, I am happy to tidy it up or answer any questions. All the recommendations, other than 2 and 3, are for IPSA. It has the power to accept or reject them. We hope that it will accept them, but it has the power. There is nothing in the report that alters the relationship. If anything, one or two of the recommendations seek to increase the distance between Parliament and the regulator and urge IPSA to be more transparent.
Adam Afriyie
Again, that is a perfect observation. In the survey that was conducted, MPs were asked on how many occasions in the last six months IPSA lost paperwork that they had submitted in support of a claim. Some 62% of MPs replied the IPSA had lost paperwork. In response to a question on the consistency of advice, the majority of MPs said that advice has been inconsistent. We updated the survey specifically to ensure that we were talking not about the history of the organisation and what happened when it was set up, but about the current reality for Members trying to get on with their work. What the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) said is reflected in the information and evidence within the report.
I will focus on two recommendations for the moment before concluding my remarks. I just wanted to dispel many of the myths that have been knocking about.
We recommend that IPSA should move as far as possible to a system of direct payments. There are lots of reports in the media about MPs and whether they are pocketing money, but, as we know, certainly since the beginning of the new Parliament, that has not been the case. Even IPSA would agree, because it has robust systems, but the Committee says, “Why keep paying money to MPs, who then have to pay it to their member of staff who bought a toner cartridge three months earlier?” Many payments could be made directly to suppliers, so that the money does not go via MPs. They are not MPs’ expenses, they are the costs of running an office, and I cannot imagine that anyone in the country buys their own office furniture and then reclaims the costs.
Bob Russell
“Expenses” is the wrong word; those costs are allowances for us to do our job. My staff salaries are not my expenses.
Adam Afriyie
That point is reflected in recommendation 8, in which the Committee states that there should be a “clear distinction” between those costs that are commonly associated with an MP personally, and those costs that clearly relate to running an office and paying staff. They do not come anywhere near an MP; they are merely the cost of providing a service to the public.
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
Debate between Adam Afriyie and Bob Russell(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for his contribution thus far. Does he know how many Members of Parliament IPSA consulted before setting up this scheme?
Adam Afriyie
That is a very good question. I have the figure 44 in my head for the number of responses to the initial January consultation. A quarter to a third of them were completely against the kind of scheme IPSA eventually introduced, while the other three quarters or two thirds raised specific issues that were not directly related to the terms of the consultation. The input from Members of Parliament in a public sense was therefore fairly minimal; only about 11 MPs actually made a contribution. That is a little concerning. I think the reason behind that low figure is that we as Members of Parliament all know that anything we write on expenses that is in the public domain is a hostage to fortune. We have to overcome that reluctance, however, because unless we show confidence and courage and make it absolutely clear that we will not tolerate an unnecessarily expensive system and an unnecessarily burdensome bureaucracy that takes us away from our constituents, we will fall into the same trap we have fallen into in the past. I therefore have a tremendous sense of déjà vu.
The expenses scandal coincided with the run-up to the general election—it was almost part of the general election campaign—so there was a political need to resolve the issue quickly. I think we all recognise that, and I think we all accept that something needed to be done fairly briskly. However, on reflection now, a year later, it seems to me that perhaps in our haste we have lost some time. Even with the best intentions in the world, there have been omissions and errors in the establishment of the current regime, and they need to be tackled.
Ignoring warnings from the Clerk of the House and others, we have created a curious beast. We have handed over control of the work of MPs to an unelected and unaccountable body. IPSA is judge and jury; IPSA is both regulator and the regulated. MPs are rightly accountable to the people who elect them, whereas IPSA is accountable to nobody, yet IPSA can control the way MPs work—it can control the amount of time that MPs have available to them to conduct their duties. That is a curious state of affairs, and if we are honest with ourselves we would never tolerate that set-up in any other walk of life, or in any other part of government or the civil service.
I do not doubt that the chairman and board of IPSA have good intentions, but is it right that the current system continues to frustrate the work of democratically elected MPs? The issue is not about us and our minor inconveniences, but about our constituents and the time that we can spend with them, so we have to be bold in what we do.
Adam Afriyie
Absolutely. My hon. Friend hits on the key issue, which has not been resolved in the last 100 years, of whether a Member of Parliament is a paid employee with a salary, in which case one would expect a job description. MPs do not have job descriptions; it is therefore semi-illogical that they would have salaries. HMRC is absolutely correct that for most intents and purposes, MPs are self-employed. I will comment on that in a moment, but I am conscious of the time that I am taking.
Bob Russell
In answer to parliamentary questions that I tabled, IPSA graciously acknowledged that I am employed by the good people of Colchester. It also acknowledged that I am the employer of my staff and that it is not the employer of MPs’ staff. However, half the time it behaves as if it were the employer of MPs, and half the time as if it were the employer of MPs’ staff.
Adam Afriyie
That is the irreconcilable nature of the task that IPSA has been set. These are quite deep waters and I am not sure that we can get into the intricacies in this debate. The hon. Gentleman is right that there is a fundamental incompatibility between an external body controlling the terms and conditions by which staff are employed and the responsibility for that employment falling with the individual Member.