Expenses rules are sexist, warns union

Member News

The new parliamentary expenses regime still encourages MPs to avoid employing women despite recent amendments, the MPs' staff union has warned.

In a statement issued today the Unite parliamentary branch said while they had successfully campaigned to force the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) to take account of the need for MPs to pay for maternity and paternity leave, uncertainty about whether claims would always be accepted would make some MPs reluctant to employ women.

In a recent update to its rules the under-fire expenses body changed the criteria under which MPs could claim from the so-called "contingency fund" to include maternity and paternity pay.

But under the regime Ipsa has "sole discretion" to decide whether a claim made by an MP from the contingency fund is legitimate or not and may reject a claim if it decides the MP "could reasonably have been expected to take any action to avoid the circumstances which gave rise to the expenditure".

The fund also exists to pay out for any necessary expenditure on staff redundancies if the redundancy is not caused by the MP leaving Parliament or any expense incurred in providing replacement staff to cover long-term sick leave.

An example of a claim that would be rejected is if an MP had equipment stolen from their constituency office, as the MP could have prevented the expenditure or liability by claiming for contents insurance for their office.

The Unite trade union, which represents over 400 staff of MPs, argues that Ipsa must create a separate and unconditional budget to fund maternity and paternity leave in order to comply with employment law.

The parliamentary branch's secretary Louise Haigh said she wanted a "written guarantee" that such claims would always be paid out.

"Instead the scheme makes it look like conditions still apply to maternity and paternity leave payments," she said.

"Maternity and paternity leave are entitlements and are not subject to Ipsa's discretion. There is also a great deal of ambiguity around what action an MP could reasonably have been expected to take to avoid the need for these payments."

She added: "We are concerned that Ipsa's approach could deter some MPs from hiring female staff.

"One of the first things they must do is to change the scheme so that it is absolutely clear that maternity, paternity and adoptive pay claims will be accepted unconditionally. The most sensible way of doing this would be to create a separate maternity and paternity leave budget to move away from the term 'contingency' and give MPs and their staff peace of mind."

But in a email bulletin sent to MPs on July 2, Ipsa said they made the decision to allow MPs to draw maternity and paternity pay from the contingency fund "not because we are exercising discretion on whether to make these payments, but so that these payments do not impact on your capped staffing budget".

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