Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Brian H. Donohoe Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Winnick]

I take that point entirely. If IPSA spent as much time trying to resolve the genuine difficulties of new and returning MPs as it gives to the press, that would be an advancement. The national press will say, as in one recent article, that MPs are too obsessed with their own position. However, what we want to do is on behalf of our constituents; it is not about our salary. Perhaps our salary has not been paid in full due to a technical fault, but that is not the subject of today’s debate. We are not going to town about that, far from it. If we want to have constituency offices and to get matters resolved, it is so that our constituents can come to our constituency offices and we can pursue their complaints. IPSA gives the impression that our concerns are all about ourselves, and that is what it tries to get over to the media.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate; it is a subject that I feel passionate about. Is it not wrong that long-standing, loyal staff find themselves in the predicament that, as a consequence of the ceiling that has been set, they might be made redundant?

[Mr Winnick]

Indeed, and I shall come to that.

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[Ann Clwyd]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that we allow enough time for the poor man who has to answer the debate to give a comprehensive reply.

I read again in the paper this morning that MPs will be given face-to-face advice surgeries with officials, starting in September. At the moment, advice is given largely via telephone helpline and e-mail. None the less, despite the complaints of MPs, Sir Ian said that it is not a complicated expenses system. Who is he kidding? It is complicated, and I object very strongly on behalf of my fellow Members that the system has been imposed upon us and that nobody seems to be accountable.

[Mr Donohoe]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that we cannot talk to IPSA but have to speak to an agency in Manchester called Calyx? When we ask a question, all the staff there can do is to say, “We’ll call you back; we have to get in touch with IPSA.” Surely that is ridiculous.

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[Mr Straw]

Of course I do not.

[Mr Donohoe]

IPSA does.

[Mr Straw]

From what I have seen, IPSA itself recognises that there are a number of anomalies in the system—although I do not remotely speak for IPSA. Those include the anomaly that if a colleague lives in a second home that they now own they cannot make a claim in respect of that second home. They could, however, rent the home out to a third party and then use an IPSA allowance to rent further accommodation. That is plainly irrational and I gather that it is going to be changed.

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[Mr Straw]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, no, I will not give way. We brought forward what became the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, which gained Royal Assent at the end of June last year.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North and, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) and others have said, there was and is, I believe, widespread agreement that we could no longer continue with a system—

[Mr Donohoe]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Straw]

No. We could no longer continue with a system of allowances whereby we set the allowances ourselves. And yes, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) is absolutely right to say that all of us felt humiliated by that situation, and still do. It was and is a collective humiliation, but we cannot place responsibility for that on the board or the staff of IPSA. I am afraid that we have to look to ourselves.

There is now, however, this other factor, which hon. Friends and other colleagues have referred to this morning, that almost every one of those who transgressed the rules is now outside this House, so the 400 returning Members and certainly the 260 new Members are now paying the price and the penalty not for their own offences, because they have not committed those offences, but for the offences of predecessors who have now left the House. That is a point that I continually make to members of the IPSA staff and board. They have got to recognise that, collectively, the Members of the new Parliament are not the culprits; those culprits, with perhaps one or two minor exceptions, have left Parliament.

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[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.

[Mr Donohoe]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I have only two minutes left.

So far as the structure of the allowance system is concerned, my view is that the authority has failed to take account of the reality of Members’ work and it needs to change that. It has failed to take account of the fact that we are in a wholly different position from most people, because we do not have an office provided for us; we are expected to provide that office ourselves, and we have to do so. That is why I believe the authority has made an error in assuming that a system for incidental expenses, which could operate for staff in a normal organisation, can be brought in to operate for the complete administration of an office. None of the people who are running that system has ever been in the position of having to run a complete office system altogether.

Secondly, there are major problems about the treatment of families. I have no interest in that issue; my family is grown up. But the fact that travel for spouses and children over the age of six is not properly supported is unacceptable.

I make two final points. First, on the administration of the system, I strongly believe in and support what the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) said about the importance of direct payments. There was no scandal that I can remember about the system of office administration—none whatever. It would have been sensible for IPSA simply to have taken over the direct payment system, which is transparent anyway. By the way, it is not the IT system that will stop abuse of the system in future; total transparency alone will do it. The elaborate system set up to stop abuse is not needed. Unless people are suicidal, there will be no more abuse.

As I perceive it, IPSA staff and Members of Parliament have been talking past one another. IPSA made an error in not ensuring that high-grade staff were available at an early stage to talk people through the system.