Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

The hon. Lady raises a key point that is at the heart of our democracy. In a parliamentary democracy, Members are elected in order to make or change the laws. Parliament is sovereign in our nation within the way that our unwritten constitution works. One has to ask whether it is right for an external body to be able to determine the way in which Members of Parliament, who are elected by the public, do their work. It is not just a question of the level of remuneration, as we understand that and accept the need for independence. I think most people are comfortable with that. If such a body determines the way in which we do our work, however, tough questions must be asked about the arrangements. I hope that as the Committee carries out the review some of these questions will be raised.

There is an opportunity for the Committee calmly to consider not only the current difficulties—the level of accountability and whether it is full enough, whether receipts need to be published and all those detailed issues that affect us on a day-to-day basis—but the constitutional position. It might also consider some of the issues to do with tidying up the omissions and other small errors that we made in our haste as we rushed to make the changes, which we were right to do.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I welcome the establishment of the Committee. Will my hon. Friend confirm whether the membership of the Committee has been determined yet, and if it has not, whether he would be prepared to serve on it? It seems to me that he would be an ideal candidate.

[Adam Afriyie]

My interest in this issue has been on the public record for many years, and I would be very happy to play a part in any Committee established for this purpose, but naturally such a Committee should have no special privileges. I hope that it would be set up in the same way as other Committees are established, but of course I am interested in this issue and would like to do my best to try to assist Parliament and hon. Members of all persuasions in doing their jobs without unnecessary obstacles being placed in the way.

Let me make some quick observations on some of the stresses and strains. I make these observations not necessarily to make judgments at this moment but simply to flag up some of the areas that cause concern, and which any future review might wish to consider. The first such area is cost. One of the mandates for the Committee is that it must have due regard to the need for value for money for the taxpayer. The budget for IPSA seems quite high, and was certainly significantly higher in the first year than that for the previous year’s arrangements. That is something we need to look at. Those costs might be appropriately high; it might be right that it is very expensive to operate what should be a relatively simple system, but any review must look into that.

Secondly, we have to consider the impact that the 2009 Act is having on the time that MPs have available to perform their duties. There is no doubt, from my own experience and that of hon. Members who were here before 2010, that the level and work load associated with the expenses systems and such matters have escalated enormously. Literally days are taken away from constituents as the time of Members and their staff is taken up. There is an enormous level of stress associated with the IPSA system, and we need to take a calm look at the impact that is having on our democracy and on Members’ ability to represent their constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I, too, will not detain the House for long. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that there are many other things we could be discussing, but we must not lose sight of the fact that many hon. Members on both sides of the House are forced, as a result of the overly bureaucratic IPSA system, to spend hours and hours dealing with something that should be relatively straightforward.

Before becoming a Member, I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), was in private practice, and my organisation had an expenses system that was simple, clear and straightforward. If someone paid something out of their own pocket for which they needed reimbursement, they produced the receipt, took it to the cashiers at the accounts department, and they checked that it was in order and paid a cheque in recompense.

I appreciate that the affairs of Members are far more complicated than that, but in essence the procedure ought to be fairly simple, yet it is difficult to conceive of a more complicated system than our current one. I trust that when the existing Committee is re-established, the membership will find time to look at all aspects of the expenses scheme but, in particular, two matters that I think are of specific concern.

First, no distinction seems to be drawn between expenses of a capital and of a revenue nature. The revision has addressed that to an extent by providing a new allowance for new Members, and that is great for Members who are elected in the future or as a result of a by-election, but the new scheme will be of no benefit to Members elected, like myself, in the 2010 general election, many of whom face having to purchase capital items out of budgets that were set for revenue.

That leads me to my second point, the publication of expenses figures on an eight-weekly basis. This provides a constant feed of information for the newspapers, which not surprisingly then use it to form league tables. Again, not surprisingly, if someone has paid a large amount out in that eight-week period, they will go straight to the top of the league table. It will be all over the newspapers that they are “Top of the league table,” yet they will have done nothing wrong. In fact, over the whole year their expenses may well come bottom of the table, but people will remember and focus on the fact the Member was top for that period.

We are not comparing like with like if we issue figures for such a short period, so I hope that when the Committee is re-established, it will find time to look at those two matters.