meltdown

Meltdown

The media really has got the bit between their collective teeth today

with revelations galore about which MP is employing which member of

their family and a few instances of some strange goings-on with the

Parliamentary expenses system.

As if he did not have enough to worry about The Sunday Telegraph

reveals that Peter Hain employs his 80-year-old mother on a Commons

salary of �5,400 a year. She has been his part-time secretary for 16

years. Anybody who has met Adelaine Hain, will know that not only is

she a charming, intelligent and highly capable individual but that

even at the age of 80 she would knock spots off many younger people in

this role.

The article goes on to list other MPs who employ family members,

including Mr. Cameron himself:

Mr Steen, the MP for Totnes, admitted that his daughter worked for

him, but rather than being a scandalous situation like Mr Conway's his

daughter was in fact being "underpaid". "Her work represents good

value because she is willing to be flexible with her hours. I will be

paying her more in future."

Other MPs employing family members include the Labour MP Dawn Butler,

whose brother Tennyson is a case worker, and the senior Tory MP Sir

George Young, whose daughter Camilla is a full-time Commons worker.

With so many MPs potentially under scrutiny, panic gripped the Commons

last week. Even as he tried to fight back over the Conway affair,

David Cameron, the Tory leader, was not immune to scrutiny of his own

affairs.

While there is nothing to suggest any wrongdoing on his part, the fact

that even Mr Cameron employs a family member - his sister-in-law Alice

Sheffield as his correspondence secretary - shows just how awkward the

issue has become.

They say that panic has gripped the Commons tearoom with Labour MPs

turning on John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw who wrote to the

Electoral Commission complaining about irregularities in Tory funding

a few weeks ago:

As one Labour MP said: "This isn't just hurting the Tories. It's

damaging all of us, politics in general, and that's no good for

anybody. It will mean people just condemn us all and we end up with

apathy and disengagement."

Meanwhile the Mail on Sunday catalogues the rather bizarre staffing

arrangements of Bob Spinks, the Tory MP for Castle Point in Essex.

They tell us that he employed his lover's daughter when she was still

a sixth-form pupil:

Ashleigh Sharp has been Bob Spink's parliamentary assistant since

2006, when she was just 17 and enrolled at a sixth-form college in

Benfleet, Essex.

Miss Sharp, the daughter of Mr Spink's former partner, Gail Boland, is

now paid more than �5,000 a year by the MP - despite also being a

student at Buckingham University.

Furthermore, he also employs his ex-wife, Janet, whom he divorced in

2002 and who now carries out her duties from Dorset, and his daughter,

Charlotte:

Mr Spink said he had ensured that all his staffing arrangements were

legitimate and said he would campaign for more transparency over MPs'

allowances.

He said he continued to employ his ex-wife, despite her move to the

West Country, because she was a "professionally qualified secretary

and PA".

"I got specific clearance from the Fees Office for her continued

employment, in Dorset. This arrangement is widely known in my

constituency," he added.

He also employs his daughter, Charlotte, on a casual basis and paid

her �4,400 in the past financial year.

Finally, for now anyway, the Mail on Sunday also reveal that

Conservative MPs Nicholas and Ann Winterton have claimed �165,000 in

Commons expenses for their �700,000 second home six years after they

paid off their mortgage. They switched their fashionable London

apartment to a family trust and used their parliamentary allowances to

avoid death duty. It is alleged that, using a loophole in Commons

rules, they claim more than �30,000 a year in "rent" from the public

purse, which is paid to a family trust set up for their two children.

The paper explains that: The extraordinary arrangement has allowed

them to benefit in two ways.

Their family has obtained �165,826 in "rent" for a home which they

bought outright in 2002. And they stand to make a saving of up to

�280,000 in their death-duty liability.

Sir Nicholas yesterday insisted he had done nothing wrong and that the

"rent" payment and the family trust deal had been approved by the

Commons authorities.

However, he said it was drawn up before checks on handouts for MPs'

second homes were tightened up - and would probably not be allowed if

it had been put forward now.

He said: "I am not dishonest. We don't own the flat, because once it

is handed over, it becomes the property of the beneficiaries of the

trust [his children].

"I see nothing unethical or wrong in it. It was agreed by the Commons

Fees office - I happen to rent a property that I bought outright."

Although all of these arrangements are within the rules, they do

highlight a lack of transparency and consistency in the process.

Clearly there is a need to regularise the way that MPs employ their

staff, ensuring that there are agreed salary scales and that

recruitment and employment methods follow good equal opportunity

principles.

It is also necessary, in my view, to change the way that the

authorities pay for a members' accommodation whilst in London. It is

clearly right that this sort of assistance continues but no member

should be allowed to profit from it. A balance has to be struck

between best value for the taxpayer and the needs of individual MPs.

Some of this is already in place in the Welsh Assembly but we can do

much more as well.

# posted by Peter Black : 10:27 AM

Comments:

True, the assembly system is better but when will people learn that

ignorance of the law is no defence? "The fees office said it's ok"

defence is pathetic when as in the cases of Wendy Alexander and Joyce

Watson they were given incomplete information and asked the wrong

questions. And remember the Assembly's shockingly shrinking boundaries

as to who can claim an "out of cardiff" allowance. Peter, you are from

Swansea, and I think I'm right in saying that you don't claim this but

don't you think it shocking that AMs whose consituencies are within

less an hours drive-time from the assembly are entitled to rack up

profits on subsidized properties?

# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 10:45 PM

This issue has to be fixed or many will just switch off to politics

and regard all MPs (and AMs) as "troffers" of the public purse. It

does seem that quite a few MPs (and relatives) have their heads,

shoulders, back-sides and feet in the public purse trough.

# posted by Blogger Dr. Christopher Wood : 4:37 AM

I think in the case of the Assembly it's been there, done that.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3487340.stm)

# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 1:56 PM