Expenses Statement
26 May 2009
All the details of the expenses claimed by Members of Parliament over the last four years are due to be published on July 1st. However, the Daily Telegraph managed to get hold of the details two weeks ago and their publication, has, very understandably, caused widespread public concern, and indeed outrage.
I very much hope that full publication by the House authorities can be arranged before July 1st but in the meantime I wanted to make a statement to my constituents. Like many of my colleagues I have been shocked and bewildered to learn how some have manipulated, and even abused, the system of parliamentary allowances which was introduced, several years after I entered parliament, with the admirable purpose of seeking to help Members perform their parliamentary duties more effectively.
The allowance that has been the subject of recent publicity is the one that was introduced to allow a Member to have a second home. A Member who has a constituency more than a few miles from London does have to have somewhere to stay when Parliament is in session and so the purpose of the allowance is entirely reasonable. It was bought in at a level that would enable a member to have a modest flat or, in those days, small house in London and the allowance was designed to cover rent or mortgage interest payments and other necessary charges. It was also expected to cover some of the cost of furnishing and equipping a home and a specific limited amount was available for daily subsistence when the House was sitting and when the Member was attending to Parliamentary duties.
My wife and I established our first London home before the system of allowances was introduced and so obviously we furnished it ourselves. Since allowances came in I have always rented a property in London so that no question of making a profit at the taxpayer’s expense could ever arise. I have used the allowance to cover rent council tax, utility bills and cleaning and I have claimed a daily subsistence allowance since that system was introduced. The only items that I have purchased for the flat have been to replace those that we bought over 30 years ago and which have worn out over the years, namely two small sofas, a couple of lamps, some replacement bed linen and towels and some replacement kitchen utensils. Every single item of expenditure has been approved by the fees office and where the rules required the providing of receipts they have been provided. Full details will be available when the allowances are published.
As far as the other allowances are concerned I very rarely use the train, and my weekly driving to and from London, saves the taxpayer around fifty pounds a week. I have an office which is open to the public daily in Pattingham in my constituency and a secretary who is based there five days a week. The office and her salary are paid from the appropriate allowances. My parliamentary secretarial work is done in a properly equipped office attached to our home in the constituency and my wife has acted as one of my secretaries since 1970. For the first seven years that she worked for me she worked without any salary at all as there was no allowance to pay her. The £1000 a year which we were given in those days did not enable me to employ a full time secretary in London and so I shared one with another Member and my wife did the rest of the work. She continues to work for me five days a week. I also have a personal assistant who is based at Westminster and who has charge of all appointments and administration in my London Office. To pay for these services and facilities for the staff I claim from the appropriate allowances but have never claimed as much as I am entitled to. All Staff are paid direct by the House which has copies of their contracts of employment and administers PAYE. I have made no claim on the £10,000 communications allowance we are allowed although in the current year £126 on mainly postage stamps has been transferred to that allowance by the fees office. I hope that this will reassure constituents that I have acted prudently. Since my election in 1970 I have always spent at least 60 hours a week on my parliamentary and constituency duties and generally far more than that.
Outside interests and earnings have always been declared on the Register of Members Interests which is a public, and publicly available, document. Further details are due to be published during the summer.
