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Mark Field MP is calling for greater transparency over pay and allowances |
This is my expenses bill – other MPs please follow
MPs affronted by the voters’ view that they are enjoying a ride on the Westminster gravy train have the solution in their own hands, says Mark Field. Like him, they should come clean and reveal how much they claim in allowances
THE recent high-profile controversy about the allowances and expenses claimed by MPs has been a less than edifying spectacle for our democracy.
For many years I have called for greater transparency in the pay and allowances of MPs as I believe the British public has a right to know how publicly-elected officials use taxpayers’ money.
My annual salary from Parliament during the year 2007-08 rose from £61,181 in April to £61,820 in November 2007. I have three members of staff in my private office and their aggregate salaries, along with the employer’s National Insurance contribution, fell below the staffing allowance of less than £90,000 during the past year. I have never employed or otherwise remunerated any members of my family since I became an MP in 2001.
The annual parliamentary communications allowance of £10,000 and incidental expenses provision of £21,339 for each MP have been used for the production and delivery of my annual report, the creation of new constituency software to provide a faster and more effective response system to my constituents, creating and operating a new website and all stationery and postal expenses.
The total amount of money used to cover petty cash and out-of-pocket office expenses and staff travel will be less than £300 for this year. All other expenses have been paid against invoices from suppliers. I also pay for an annual Oyster card for my travel here in London out of my incidental expenses provision. As a small businessman for many years before becoming an MP I learnt very quickly the importance of accurate financial paperwork. It is a lesson I have brought with me to my current role.
As an inner-London member I receive no additional cost allowance (ACA) despite the substantial costs of having a main (rather than second) home in central London, one of the most expensive cities in the world.
The basic salary of an MP ranks lower than that for many other positions carrying similar levels of responsibility. Political pressure not to raise the headline salary over recent decades has resulted in an unacceptably lax culture regarding allowances and expenses. These allowances, predominantly the ACA (which has more than doubled over the past six years in spite of there being no Senior Salary Review Board recommendation so to do), are regarded by many MPs as a legitimate addition to enhance the basic salary, hence the widespread reluctance to adhere to businesslike standards of transparency and disclosure.
We now have a situation where all parliamentarians are being seen, like their European parliamentary counterparts, as being on a gravy train. For most MPs this is an affront to their integrity. Understandably, most of the general public expect all MPs’ allowances and expenses to be a matter of public record. The attempt last year to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act was regarded as scandalous by an increasingly hostile electorate.
What should take place now is a root and branch reappraisal of the system so that MPs’ use of expenses and allowances can be transparent. Only then will the public feel that their parliamentary representatives have the integrity demanded of them in the modern world.
It is becoming apparent even to the most obtuse of parliamentarians that there is widespread dismay – even disgust – among constituents as the press revelations about the use of MPs’ allowances become ever more lurid. We urgently need to clean up our act.
There is no substitute for open, full, transparent disclosure.
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