MPs' expenses: where do they go from here?

MPs' expenses: where do they go from here?

Public faith in the integrity of politicians looks terminally damaged, but to attempt a quick fix of MPs' expenses would be a mistake, says Anthony King.



The British public probably holds this country's entire political class in greater contempt today than at any time since the 18th century. That was the age, culminating in the Napoleonic Wars, of "the old corruption", with political leaders augmenting their power and lining their pockets at the public's expense.

Now we clearly live in the age of new corruption, with large numbers of MPs improving their quality of life at the expense of today's public.

By now the responses of aggrieved MPs are drearily familiar. They chorus that whatever they did was completely in accordance with the rules. The only trouble with that line of argument is that the rules, as they lie on the printed page, are clearly designed to do nothing more than prevent MPs from being financially penalised for having, in many cases, to maintain two homes, travel long distances and incur expenses that any ordinary private-sector employer would be expected to reimburse in the normal course of business. The rules, as printed, do not suggest that MPs should regard their allowances as a form of covert salary supplement.

Another response is that British politicians pilfer the public purse less than politicians in many other countries. That is undoubtedly so – Italy springs to mind – but it is hardly a defence against misconduct to say that others elsewhere are even worse offenders. Honourable members in Britain are supposed to behave honourably, not just less dishonourably than their opposite numbers abroad.

Coming out of a clear blue sky, The Daily Telegraph's revelations would have been shocking enough – and they have shocked even hardened cynics. But they have come out of a sky that was already overcast. Levels of distrust of politicians among the public were at historically high levels. Decades of deceit, spin, waste, hyper-partisanship and sheer incompetence have already alienated millions of voters – possibly a majority – from the entirety of the political class. That alienation now goes both deeper and wider.

One consequence, not the most important, is likely to be nose-holding and nose-thumbing on a prodigious scale at next month's local and European Parliament elections. Some voters will manifest their anger by declining to vote. Others will show their disgust by backing the candidates of minor parties, the ones least contaminated, or uncontaminated, by the latest scandal.

At the European Parliament elections five years ago, 38 per cent of those who bothered to turn out backed either independents or one of the minor parties. That figure is likely to be even higher in June. The BNP, in particular, invariably feeds on carrion.

But a far more important consequence is likely to be British political leaders' loss of moral authority during a time of dislocation and recession when – more than for many years past – moral authority is badly needed. Whichever party wins the next general election, millions of Britons are going to have to make personal sacrifices during the coming decade.

It would be hard enough for a Winston Churchill or a Clement Attlee to persuade them to accept those sacrifices with good grace. It will be far harder, perhaps impossible, for the present generation of leaders to achieve the same effect. The national mood could turn sullen and sour, even nasty.

Clearly, scores of MPs have been using parliamentary allowances as a form of additional income for at least 30 years. The remarkable thing is that no one blew the whistle until The Daily Telegraph began to undertake the task last week. Most people are not merely shocked and dismayed by what they read. They are probably also greatly surprised, if not necessarily by the mere fact of the fiddling, then by its extent.

How have the MPs on the take managed to get away with it? The answer seems to be an almost literal conspiracy of silence. Members of Parliament were either on the take themselves or did not want to make enemies of those MPs who were. After all, no one wants to break the informal rules of any club to which they belong. A club's informal rules and norms are often the most tightly binding. Political journalists were often honorary members of the same club.

As for the House of Commons "authorities", they seem to have connived with MPs and even encouraged them to take advantage of the rules while staying, at least nominally, on the right side of them.

It is strange that until a day or so ago few thought to shine a spotlight on the House of Commons Commission – the House's principal administrative body – and its ex officio chairman, the Speaker, Michael Martin. All the signs are that, at least until yesterday, the commission made it its business to prevent, if it could, more than minor incursions into the existing arrangements.

Of course, the Speaker's own expenses have long since been queried. A YouGov survey for The Daily Telegraph in February found that a clear majority of voters believe that Mr Martin has abused the allowances system.

As always on these occasions (though there has never been an occasion quite like this), the cry goes up that something must be done – at once. Something certainly needs to be done – but not at once.

In the first place, there is no longer any need: from now on the vast majority of MPs are going to be far more careful about the expenses they claim and the receipts they provide than they have been in the past.

In the second place, rushes of blood to the head are bad guides to judgment. The Prime Minister knows that, having made himself look ridiculous by launching, on YouTube, proposals for reform of the present system that lacked any purchase on reality.

The Prime Minister and considerable numbers of MPs are pressing, not to say trying to bully, Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life into expediting their inquiry and reporting its findings before the summer recess. They are in desperate search of a quick fix. However, Sir Christopher is right to insist that the issues are complicated and deserve to be looked at in all their complexity. No one has done the job properly in the past. The job needs to be done properly. Doing it properly will take time, of which there is plenty.

One conundrum facing the committee concerns parliamentary sovereignty and the House of Commons' long-standing insistence on regulating its internal affairs. On the one hand, the world now knows how the House has, in practice, regulated its affairs – badly. On the other, no body outside Parliament has the legal or constitutional right to dictate to Parliament.

The obvious precedent to follow is that of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, established during the 1990s on the recommendation of the original Nolan Committee. The Standards Commissioner is simultaneously a servant of the House of Commons and also its master, at least to the extent that he can shame and embarrass MPs into doing what they ought to do on their own account.

A few voices are calling for another kind of quick fix: the dissolving of Parliament and the calling of an early general election. One trouble with that particular fix is that it is not going to happen. Turkeys seldom vote for an early Christmas, and Gordon Brown, today's head turkey, is not about to
do so.

More to the point, a dissolution and the election of a new Parliament would solve nothing, save possibly purging a few more erring MPs than will be purged in any case early next year. If a purge is the aim of the exercise, local party officers and activists can set about purging sitting MPs by deselecting them as their parliamentary candidates.

But the core problem really has little or nothing to do with committees, inquiries and rules. It has to do with MPs being persuaded to see themselves as others see them and then – in the interests of British democracy – responding accordingly.

The best question has always been: "Would you be happy to see the things you do reported on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper?" Had more MPs asked themselves that simple question, there would have been a lot less for this newspaper to report.

Anthony King is professor of government at Essex University and was a founder member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life under Lord Nolan