Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

As almost all of us are recipients of expenses, I assume that it is appropriate to make a declaration of interest at the outset.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

You make a profit, do you?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raynsford]

I was going to come to this point later, but I entirely concur with the hon. Gentleman's view that the system is cumbersome and slow, and is not cost-effective. It is costing the country a great deal more than is necessary for a safe, rigorous and transparent system for overseeing MPs’ expenses claims.

[Michael Connarty]

On whether the system, which is costing that amount of money, is effective, IPSA cannot process a direct debit. It cannot process a BACS payment. The Scottish Parliament, when I shared an office with an MSP, used to process direct debits and send me a bill for half because we did not have the capacity to do that either in the Fees Office or in IPSA. It seems that for £6 million we get a system that does not work.

[Mr Raynsford]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point and countless examples have been brought to those of us who served on the Committee of ways in which the current system imposes unreasonable costs and burdens and is inefficient. Our objective as a Committee was to come forward with proposals that would be practical and sensible and could be implemented to achieve a better system of independently regulated expenses. That is the nub of what the Committee is proposing. As the report emphasises, the improvement of the process should deliver savings in expenditure because the current system costs more than is required to run an independently regulated, transparent and cost-effective system. Indeed, as the Chair of the Committee made clear, it is hard to find examples anywhere else in the world of a system where the regulator is also the payment agency—where the two roles, administration and regulation, are combined. There are unfortunately inherent inefficiencies in the way in which that is being done, which need to be addressed to create a fair but also more cost-effective system.

Therefore, it is sad, but not entirely unpredictable, that much of the media reaction to the publication of the report and today’s debate is to interpret them as an attempt to turn the clock back to the bad old days. May I say openly, as an MP who has not been subject to personal criticism for his expense claims over the years, that I have no wish whatever to revert to the old system, which was open to abuse and has rightly been replaced by one of independent regulation? All MPs suffered reputational damage as a result of the exposure of the abuses that some perpetrated under the old system. The restoration of public confidence is vital and that is what should be at the forefront of our minds. That is why we must stick with a system of independent regulation, but it is also why we should not stay silent now about the failings of the administration of the existing system.

The worry is that, because MPs are naturally worried about reputational damage in a climate where some of the media have used this as an opportunity in the last day or two to raise lurid headlines of “Back to the bad old days”, and “Greedy MPs want more money”, genuine concerns about the inefficiencies and unsatisfactory features of the current system will not be addressed. MPs find it easier and safer not to put their heads above the parapet and risk being attacked by the media for supporting sensible recommendations that will improve the system.