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| Parliamentary Candidate Terry Scriven. Click on the image above to see a larger picture. |
I was deeply disappointed Julian Lewis, Member of Parliament for New Forest East, recently failed in the House of Commons to support measures to reform MPs’ parliamentary expenses making the system more transparent and accountable to voters.
It is even more irritating at a time when many local people are struggling with gas and electricity bills, having difficulty paying mortgage and council tax demands or just find it hard to meet their weekly food bill.
Rarely a week passes without a media story ridiculing MPs’ finances. But for so long as they resist modernising their expenses and allowances scheme to one recognisable by those of us having to live in the real world, the public can be forgiven for wondering what they have got to hide.
High Court ruling on the 16 May 2008 stated,” The expenditure of public money through payment of MPs’ salaries and all allowances is a matter of direct and reasonable interest to taxpayers.” It went on to say “The Additional Costs and Allowances system which allow MPs to claim for second homes was so deeply flawed and the shortfall of accountability so substantial that the necessity for disclosure has been convincingly established”.
Julian Lewis has regularly stated, “My own expenses are substantially below average but the time for MPs to reveal specific amounts is when a decree that we do it altogether in the same format is made so there is no danger of any ones figures being played off against another.”
He is right that there may be a danger some people would misunderstand his or any other MP’s figures. For example: in the financial year 2004/05 the House of Common’s records appear to indicate he spent up to the limit of his Additional Cost Allowance of £20,902.00 and was ranked joint first out of 659 MPs for spending the most; in 2005/06 he spent £20,830.00 (no ranking given); and in 2006/07 he spent a total £21,984.00 being ranked 263 out of 645 MPs. However there appears to be just £126.00 between him and the MP ranked first.
Julian Lewis often links the public scrutiny of MPs’ expenses to the security of MPs’ addresses. Personally I am not interested in the precise location of his three properties in London, Totton and Southampton. However it has become a matter of public interest in relation to all MPs which property they nominate as their second home for parliamentary allowances purposes.
As the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary spokesman for the New Forest East constituency it is my job to hold Julian Lewis MP to account on a range of issues and I intend to do that. In addition, I fully support the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party’s decision to voluntarily subject their own expenses to public scrutiny and external audit.
I will continue to raise this issue through to the next election, as I believe that local people, who fund it through their taxes, are fed up with what they have been reading about MPs’ allowances and expenses and are demanding something is done about it. |
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