Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

The action plan that I have mentioned contains a number of proposals to improve the situation and to make it easier for people to come forward. The main obstacle is not so much the language barrier. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can imagine that many of these cases involve young girls from particular communities, and that there are cultural and other taboos that make this very difficult for them. The real point is the approach mentioned by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) involving getting community support. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, however.

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

7. Whether he has had discussions with the European Commission on the legal status of Scotland’s membership of the EU in the event of a yes vote to independence.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

I have not discussed with the European Commission the legal status of Scotland’s membership of the EU. The United Kingdom Government’s position is that the most likely outcome is that Scotland would have to join the EU as a new member state. That position has been backed up by comments from the President of the European Commission and by the President of the European Council.

[Michael Connarty]

We have a phrase in the Scottish language, “Facts are chiels that winn’a ding”, which means “Facts are children who do not lie”. Despite the wonderful report by Professor James Crawford of Cambridge university and Professor Alan Boyle of Edinburgh university—which includes the quote on page 8 from the President of the Commission that has just been referred to—on which the Government have based their most recent document, may I plead with the Attorney-General to get engaged in this issue? We need to get to the point at which the legal officers in this Chamber and the majority of the people in my party, representing the people of Scotland, are dealing with facts, not with assertions. Will he please get involved with the interrogation of the Commission and set down the legal facts on what will happen? I think that that would support Barroso’s position.

[The Attorney-General]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s message. The view that I express is the view of the United Kingdom Government, and it is backed up by the advice of Professor Crawford and Professor Boyle. The overwhelming weight of international precedent is that, in the event of independence, the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise its international rights and obligations, and that Scotland would form a new state. In those circumstances, Scotland would have to apply to join the European Union.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Rather surprisingly, we found no arrangements whatever in place for monitoring the cost to the taxpayer of paid time off for trade union representatives. It had been allowed to spiral completely out of control under the previous Government and we are at long last bringing it under control.

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

T5. The Cabinet Office seems to have left out its responsibility for the Office for National Statistics when it listed its responsibilities. When it is clear that the country is facing a major problem of addictive gambling, why have the Government not carried out the gambling prevalence survey provided for in the Gambling Act 2005, so we do not know how much addictive gambling there is in the country?

[Mr Maude]

As the hon. Gentleman ought to know, the Office for National Statistics is a non-ministerial Government department, which has statutory independence from Ministers.

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman’s question was written by the GMB, because I hear that Opposition Front Benchers have got into the habit of asking their union paymasters what questions they should ask and what amendments they should table. If that happened in any other political party, Labour Members would say that it was an absolute scandal. We know that the trade unions can speak for themselves; it is time that we knew whether the Labour party can think for itself.

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

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I am sorry, Mr Speaker. I enjoyed the last answer so much that I temporarily forgot where I was.

As Deputy Prime Minister, I support the Prime Minister on a range of Government policies and initiatives, and, within Government, I take special responsibility for the Government’s programme of political and constitutional reform.

[Michael Connarty]

I am pleased to note that the Deputy Prime Minister remembers what his Department actually does.

One of the main topics of interest to people in my constituency is the commission that will consider the West Lothian question. Can the Deputy Prime Minister give us a firm timetable for consultation, and can he name all the parties that will be consulted, including the Labour party, the new Labour party leadership in Scotland and the trade unions, which are a fundamental part of the fabric of the Scottish people?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), will give more details about the commission in a statement before Christmas.

European Council

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. If he looks at what we have achieved in a relatively short time—getting out of the bail-outs, getting agreement among the big countries for a freeze in the European budget this year and getting the European Commission to focus on deregulation rather than regulation—he will see that they are all important. I agree with his first point. A lot of companies come and invest in Britain not just because of our economic strengths, our flexible labour markets and all the rest of it, but because of access to the world’s biggest single market, which is important for investment into Britain by American, Japanese and other firms, creating the jobs and wealth that we need.

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

With some financial analysts saying that banks holding sovereign debt might have to take a 25% to 60% write-down on that, can the Prime Minister elucidate for the benefit of the House what he means by a “financial firewall big enough to contain any contagion”, and say whether he thinks that the IMF needs to be involved and that the problem cannot be solved in Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

There are two issues if we are going to see a decisive resolution of the Greek situation. Obviously we need a recapitalisation of Europe’s banks, so that they have sufficient capital to withstand the losses that would otherwise affect them. Credible stress tests are crucial to that: there has been round after round of stress tests in Europe, but they have not been robust and credible enough. I believe that that has now been secured, not least because of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s work in the ECOFIN meeting. The second thing we need—the firewall; what I called the “big bazooka”, which the shadow Chancellor referred to the other day—is to ensure that we have a mechanism big enough to help to stop contagion to other countries. There will be discussions in the eurozone and outside it about how big that needs to be, but the answer is: bigger than is currently proposed, and they need to keep working on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on the prosecution of cases involving allegations of human trafficking or slavery.

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

7. What plans he has to increase prosecutions of those involved in human trafficking.

[The Attorney-General]

I have had no recent discussions with the Director of Public Prosecutions on the prosecution of cases involving human trafficking or slavery. However, the Crown Prosecution Service is working with law enforcement agencies and others, both in the UK and in source countries, to improve the investigation and prosecution of those involved in human trafficking. The CPS is also encouraging victims of human trafficking to support criminal proceedings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Connarty]

I read with interest the CPS report on prosecuting human trafficking cases, and I cannot understand how the Minister can say that the matter is not within his remit, because it quite clearly talks about vulnerable children, the need for adequate support and safeguarding. It is difficult to get prosecutions if those children flee, and we do not know how many are in care or how many are missing. Surely the obvious thing to do would be to have a scheme of guardianship, in which the children are looked after individually. They could then be supported through the process of going to court, so that we can get prosecutions for this heinous crime.

[The Attorney-General]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, and for the reasons that I gave in answer to the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), I can see that it has considerable force, but I do not think that it is the specific responsibility of the CPS to deliver on this. It would require work with other agencies to achieve it and, for those reasons, it is something that I am happy to see taken forward, but it is not something that the CPS on its own can deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

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

6. What steps he is taking to increase voter registration.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that it is the individual responsibility of electoral registration officers to improve registration rates, but the Government are committed to helping them. He will know that the local council in his area is taking part in one of our data-matching pilots. I hope that that will have a positive effect on driving up registration rates, and then we can see whether it has lessons for rolling out such a system across the country.

[Michael Connarty]

Although it gave me great pleasure that Iain McKenzie was elected comfortably as the Labour candidate in the Inverclyde by-election—I was doubly joyous that the Liberal Democrats lost their deposit—I was concerned by the number of people I met who did not have an electoral registration card and were somewhat confused. Will the Minister assure me that the data-matching that he mentioned will be followed up by the Government, so that the responsibility, and the blame, is not left to electoral registration officers? It is a Government responsibility, if they want equal votes of equal value, to ensure that everyone is on the register.

[Mr Harper]

I very much agree with the last sentiment that the hon. Gentleman expressed. My officials are working closely with all local authorities that are looking at matching electoral registers with other existing government databases, to see whether we can identify people who are eligible to vote, but not on the register, and to follow them up. The evidence from the pilots will be looked at not just by the Government but by the Electoral Commission, and if the pilots prove successful we will look at rolling them out across the country. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for that initiative.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor-General]

That is a decision not only for the DPP but for the chief Crown prosecutors in the various areas throughout the jurisdiction. This will depend on business need, but I assure the hon. Lady that rape prosecutions will be pursued with the same vigour both now and in the future.

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

3. What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to support victims of human trafficking to participate in criminal proceedings.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

4. What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to support victims of human trafficking to participate in criminal proceedings.

[The Solicitor-General]

The CPS is taking a number of steps to encourage victims of human trafficking to support criminal proceedings, including the publication of a new public policy statement setting out its prosecution policy and how it will support victims. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) a moment ago, the Home Secretary will shortly publish her Department’s human trafficking strategy. The CPS is also working with non-governmental organisations to develop further measures to assist and support victims.

[Michael Connarty]

I am very heartened by the general replies and that specific reply from the Solicitor-General on this question, but we are aware of reported cases of magistrates saying to a 14-year-old girl who had been trafficked and found in a cannabis factory that she had clearly made a lifestyle choice. Did the Attorney-General give any evidence, or a submission, to the Home Secretary in the upcoming review? If not, why not? If so, will he place a copy of his contribution in the Library for us all to read?

[The Solicitor-General]

It would not be sensible for me to comment on unattributable, or unattributed, remarks by unidentified magistrates. If what the hon. Gentleman suggests was said in that case was said, it was clearly unwise. The Law Officers’ Department did make a contribution to the thinking behind the Home Secretary’s human trafficking strategy. The hon. Gentleman will be able to read the strategy in full when it is published next week, and it will doubtless refer to all sorts of sources.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have made my views clear: if the Scottish Parliament wanted to hold a referendum, although I think that that would be a retrograde step, we would have to grant it. I would then join with everyone in this House and beyond who supports our United Kingdom to ensure that we keep it together. That is the process that we should go through, and it would involve a vote for people in Scotland, not for those in the rest of the United Kingdom.

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

Q6. I am a very generous person, so I compliment the Government on eventually deciding to sign up to the EU human trafficking directive. A recent report by the Children’s Commissioner for Scotland said that he could identify 200 children trafficked into Scotland, and ECPAT UK has stated that 1,000 children have been trafficked into the rest of the UK. Both bodies recommend that the Government appoint an independent human trafficking rapporteur and strengthen the guardianship system for children. Given that the Government have cut specialist teams in the Home Office and the police in this area, how can they assure the House that the UK is prepared for the responsibility that comes with signing up to the EU directive?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman says, because I know that he has a deep concern about trafficking, as do many Members of our House. Frankly, the fact that children and young adults are trafficked for sex and other purposes in our world is completely disgraceful, and we have to stamp it out. We have signed up to the directive, as he said, and we were already complying with the terms of the directive. We must do everything we can to stamp out this repulsive practice.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), I will vote very reluctantly. Every time a military conflict takes place, death is involved along with ramifications for future generations, and everything hinges on what we say in this Chamber. We all know that this Chamber is the nerve centre of the country.

Although we are debating the motion, I really believe that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were right to take the actions that they have taken. We cannot stand by and watch people who are not that far away from us, geographically—on the shores of Europe—suffer as they are suffering. We are dealing with a man who, time and again, has violated human rights. Time and again he has killed his own people. He has killed people on our soil. People have been killed through his orders, indirectly, and by his regime, certainly.

Members on both sides of the argument have said that we should have had more time in which to discuss the motion, but cries for help have no time. Those cries for help are coming from 2,000 miles away, which is not very far, and we have to help people. We have to be part of this.

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

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is listening to the cries for help from the people of Bahrain who have been murdered by Saudi Arabian troops, the people in the south of Syria who have been murdered by troops, or the people in Yemen who have been murdered by another dictator there. Why select these cries for help to listen to?

[David Morris]

Because it is the right thing to do; that is why.

[Michael Connarty]

Why select them?

[David Morris]

It is the right thing to do at this time and in this case.

Let me tell the House a story of which I have personal knowledge. A good friend of mine who was a radio officer on a ship jumped off it into the ocean when he saw a British destroyer come past. The military on the ship from which he jumped threw grenades at him, one of which hit him but bounced off and, thankfully, did not explode. He swam for his life, and our boys pulled him out of the sea. He came to this country, and was thankful for that. He has been here for nearly 30 years. Just think of that. Let me tell the House something else. When the students were bombing Manchester in the 1980s, that man lied to everyone that he was Italian, because he was in fear of his life. That is the kind of regime that we are discussing today, and the kind of regime that we want to sort out once and for all.

What else happened in the 1980s? Yvonne Fletcher was shot on our own soil in front of the television cameras. Some people have very short memories, but I do not have a short memory, and what worries me is that if we had not acted as we have so far, massacres would now be occurring in Libya.

This is not about the moral high ground. We pulled a mission yesterday—or over the weekend, or whenever it was—because civilians were involved. We do not attack human shields. We should think about what we are doing here. Yes, we are putting our troops into a theatre, but we are also saving people’s lives, and we are sorting out a dictator who should have been sorted out years ago. This man was responsible for Lockerbie. Do Members remember that? I do. He was never brought to book. Dare I say it, but some Members wanted to appease that regime—and here we are today, having to take up the mantle to sort it out again.

I was outraged when Yvonne Fletcher was shot. What can we do about all this? We can do the right thing. When Members go through the Lobbies tonight, they should think about what has happened in the history of Libya and how it has affected this country and the middle east, and they should do the right thing.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that her comments and those of all hon. Members who take part in the debate are noted seriously by IPSA. I am sure that it is watching proceedings and will read Hansard.

It is important for IPSA to understand what this debate is about. First, it is about ensuring that IPSA’s operation is cost-effective, because we have a duty as the House of Commons to the taxpayers of this country to ensure that it is cost-effective. Secondly, it is about ensuring that the body is working properly. Undoubtedly, there are areas in which it is not doing so. Thirdly, and most significantly to Members of Parliament, it is about ensuring that our constituents are receiving the best possible service from us.

The area of office costs illustrates my point well. My predecessor entered the House of Commons in 1958. I took over in 1987, until which point no Member of Parliament representing the old Pontypool seat had had a constituency office. That was not unusual. Constituency after constituency did not have an office occupied by the Member of Parliament. I have no doubt that if, almost 24 years on, I decided to close down the office, my constituents would disagree violently. People in every constituency expect their Member of Parliament to have a constituency base with a caseworker, where they can go to talk about their problems.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) that there is a considerable difference between an MP who uses the parliamentary estate as his or her main office and one whose main office is in the constituency. The biggest change that we should make is to disentangle office expenses from personal expenses, because an office expense is not a personal one. That matter is causing considerable difficulties for Members and I believe that IPSA is beginning to understand that. It is beginning to change its policy on that. For instance, as Members will know, office rent can now be paid directly by IPSA and we can use the travel or credit card that IPSA supplies to pay certain bills. I do not see for one second why that should not be taken even further. Personally, I do not want to handle any money at all to do with my constituency office, and I believe that my constituents would agree with that policy.

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

I have to disabuse my right hon. Friend of the idea that IPSA can handle treating personal expenses and office expenses differently. When I asked IPSA to reimburse my expenses for living in London to my personal account and to put my claims for my office into an office cost account, which I have run for the past 18 years, it said that it could not handle two bank accounts at the same time. It could pay all the money into my personal account or all of it into my office account, but it could not separate the payments. The system is terrible and not geared up to deal with the reality of an MP’s life.

[Paul Murphy]

The result, of course, is that the service that we provide our constituents becomes less and less effective. There is no reason in this wide world why the old system of ensuring that personal expenses are separate from office expenses should be taken over by IPSA. Its starting that process seems to me to underline the fact that it has accepted the principle that they are different.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I welcome the sea change from a system that was clearly not transparent as far as the public were concerned. It was clear that the public thought that the system we had before contained hidden powers for Members of Parliament and a lack of transparency. The electorate were right to demand a redefinition of what we were allowed to spend their taxes on. I have no regrets about all the things for which expenses were available before but have now been withdrawn. It would be wrong of us to think that the public did not demand changes—and they got changes. I regard it as important that we have an independent, transparent system, controlled and reconciled by a body outwith the control of MPs. That is why I cannot vote for the motion.

However, I disliked the witch hunting that went on during the process of change. It distorted the public’s view, and IPSA is a system based partly on what is acceptable to the tabloid journalists and The Daily Telegraph, as well as to the few hotheads—only a few dozen in my constituency—who demanded that we should pay everything out of our salaries and sleep on a park bench. As I have said again and again, it is a punishment system, although IPSA did not mean it to be.

I have to be quite honest that I disliked the windbaggery at the time, of which we have heard some more today, with people playing to the redtops and going for populism rather than common sense in their speeches. That is not useful to any of us. I am sad to say that I could not have supported the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) if it had been selected, because he is doing it again. It mentions apologising unreservedly to the British people—should the 300 new Members vote for that? It suggests that the House trusts IPSA, but I do not trust it. I think IPSA is an incompetent system, put together by people on a board in which I have no confidence, under a chairman who I do not believe understands, or has even tried to understand, what is required. I told the gentleman that to his face, and I have not been persuaded to change my opinion.

If any Member says that IPSA is not interfering with their task of working for their constituents and constituency, either they are not getting reimbursed, they are getting a member of their staff to do the work for them or they are working longer hours. I have an ongoing case in my constituency of a man of 53 who buried his 30-year-old son, who developed pneumonia and left behind four children. That man is an unemployed bricklayer in the middle of a recession that is particularly affecting the building industry. He is my priority, so I chose to deal with his case rather than to start claiming back some of the road travel expenses that I have never claimed since the day that IPSA came into being. I do the same every time—I give priority to my constituency work load and what my constituents need, and I keep putting off claims.

Of course, IPSA’s 90-day rule means that many claims for such legitimate expenses will be denied me, as the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), who travels two hours to the House every day, told us earlier. It has made an arbitrary rule that after 90 days, it does not matter what we have spent money on, we cannot get it back. Another arbitrary rule is that if we forget to send the paperwork within seven days of an online claim, it can deny us the payments. That has nothing to do with the legitimate claims and expenditure of Members of Parliament.

Now is the correct time to have this debate, which is not about having a whinge at IPSA. It has said from the beginning that there will be a six-month review, and that it will improve the system. My contention, as I said to Sir Ian Kennedy when he came to speak to the Scottish Labour group, is that just as a camel is a horse designed by a committee, IPSA’s system was supposed to be a horse but is in fact a donkey. It was designed by people who were not competent to design it or they met a man, or maybe even a woman, of shifty personal background, who sold them a system that is inadequate and yet much more tortuous.

My son is a senior systems solutions architect for Hitachi. He was awarded the Hitachi systems engineer of the year award for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries last year. He laughs like a drain every time I tell him about our online claim system, which we have to back up like some sort of petty cost clerk, by putting together all the paperwork and sending it all in for somebody to check.

I tell my son that two companies are involved—one in Manchester, which is getting a good old pay-off for the online system, and a wedge of people up on Victoria road in rather palatial circumstances who are supposedly checking every single invoice that comes through, and who boast about having turned down so many claims from Members that are in fact legitimate. We have heard that they have even refused claims for people’s offices or not paid national insurance. That is not a system that is working efficiently, but it is costing the Government, and the people through their taxes, a lot of money.

I have had a number of useful conversations with the acting chief executive. I always worry about acting chief executives—are they afraid that if they recommend radical change they could be sacked? He is still acting chief executive, yet he seemed to respond well to everything I said to him.

I have experience of running a claims system as a leader of a council for 10 years. We used a paper system, rather than an online and a paper system. I also have experience of using the system in the Scottish Parliament. At the moment, I get all the bills for my office, which I share with my MSP, paid directly out of the allowances of the MSP and they then send me a bill from the Scottish Parliament and I pay it back to them. That arrangement is much quicker, much more efficient and much more transparent. There has been a suggestion that we move to a system of direct payment. Sadly, I think that a Member who spoke earlier was wrong, because IPSA has moved only slightly in the direction of saying that it will directly pay contracted regular payments, for example, our office rent and our office council tax. IPSA has also offered to do this for our second homes allowance, but—

[Jo Swinson]

rose—

[Michael Connarty]

I am sorry, but I do not have time to give way. IPSA cannot handle the idea that we might want to claim less back than we pay or that we also have regular non-contracted payments that vary, such as service charges for flats. IPSA can handle only very limited things. What it cannot do is handle a system where we send it the invoice, it verifies that it is legitimate, it pays it and then deducts it from our allowances, because IPSA is against an allowance system in principle. IPSA wants a system that is so stupid that we have to make the claims.

IPSA has done something bizarre in terms of transparency by saying that it will pay on invoices: we send it an invoice before we pay it, it will send us the money and then we have to remember to pay the invoice. I predict that there will be tragedies in that way; people will lose invoices and will fail to pay them. If we pay them by credit card, where do we get the receipt to prove that we have paid?

The final thing that I want to talk about is the travel card. We get a paper version where we could clearly fill in what it is for and sign it at the bottom, as we used to do. We could then attach to it any receipts that are not coming from the travel office—the travel office will send IPSA every receipt directly—and so all of my flights, my train journeys and all my use of the Heathrow express would be covered. But IPSA does not want to know about that; we still have to go through a system of having this all put online, then following up on the cost part, assembling all the bits of paper and sending everything in. IPSA is not fit for purpose and it is costing us a lot of money. It is not time to take all the power back to MPs, but it is time to reform it properly.