Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North referred to new MPs setting up their offices from scratch. Some new colleagues have told me that they cannot afford the offices used by their predecessors. The rent will last for a number of weeks and then they will be pushed out of those offices.

On the same day that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Mr Timms) was stabbed at a constituency surgery, I challenged a person whom I thought was breaking into a property neighbouring my constituency office. The police advised me that challenging would-be burglars is not a good idea and that I should desist from doing so in future. My current constituency office is a place in which I feel that my staff and I are safe—it is not a shop, it is not on the ground floor and we have good security protection in the building—but I am very aware of the possibility of crime in the area and the other security threats posed to MPs and their staff.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am an MP for a new constituency following a boundary change. It would plainly have been the wrong decision for me to try to inherit the premises occupied by my former colleague, David Clelland, which are on the outskirts of the new constituency. In Gateshead town centre, there is a significant transport hub that feeds virtually every part of my constituency, so it would be right for me to establish a new constituency office there. However, the IPSA recommendations on rents do not take account of town centre locations, where rents are necessarily higher because of market conditions. That precludes my establishing a constituency office that is handy for my constituents to access, unless I subsidise it out of my own salary.

[Barbara Keeley]

That is a well made point.

I am short of time, so I want to end my remarks on that aspect by saying that I cannot get another office that I believe would be safe for my staff at the rent that IPSA has used to calculate office costs. IPSA is considering my case, and presumably that of other Members in my situation. I hope that it will be true to its word and not force me and other MPs out of our constituency offices. If it forces us into cheap premises in unsuitable areas, what does that say about security and safety considerations? Following on from my hon. Friend’s intervention, I am now thinking about finding ways to subsidise my office costs. That is the position we have been pushed into.

In summary, why has IPSA changed the terms laid down in the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009? Why does it describe our offices and staffing costs and other essential elements of MPs’ costs as “expenses”, given that the word has such a particular resonance with the public? Why has it caused a great deal of doubt, uncertainty and problems to MPs by reducing the office costs budget and splitting an allowance that worked well into elements with caps that are too low to work properly for a number of MPs and that, by forcing MPs into cheaper office premises, could have very serious implications for the safety and security of MPs and their staff?