Showing posts with label uk MPs expense scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uk MPs expense scandal. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
UK MPs: "We're not paid enough"
"MPs were accused yesterday of a massive cover-up of their expenses after the Commons authorities released hundreds of thousands of claims documents and receipts with huge sections of detail blacked out.
Amid renewed public anger over the scale of Westminster's spending habits, the documents contained enough fresh information to create new embarrassment for senior politicians.
David Cameron was forced to pay back an extra £947, the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, was reported to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and Gordon Brown was revealed to have charged the taxpayer almost £6,500 to green his second home in Scotland.
Even Tony Blair found himself under the spotlight after the documents revealed that he had claimed almost £7,000 for roof repairs two days before leaving office and standing down as an MP.
With MPs reeling from public anger at the extent of their claims, Bill Cockburn, the chairman of the body responsible for setting their pay, chose yesterday to suggest that MPs deserve a pay rise of up to £10,000 a year, arguing that they were underpaid by 10-15%.
It was also disclosed that 184 MPs – over a third of the Commons – have agreed to pay back nearly £478,000 in inappropriate claims, including Brown and ministers Douglas Alexander, Alistair Darling, Yvette Cooper, David Miliband, Ed Balls, Rosie Winterton, Andy Burnham and the former home secretary Jacqui Smith."
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Minister quits over her expenses
|Treasury minister Kitty Ussher has quit the government after further questions were raised about her expenses.
Ms Ussher took the step amid reports she "flipped" the designation of her second home shortly before selling it in 2007, avoiding capital gains tax.
Ms Ussher denied she did anything wrong and said she was stepping aside to prevent the government embarrassment.
The move comes on the eve of the publication of all MPs' expenses on the Parliament website
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
According to Wikipedia MP stands for.......
- Mending plate
- Military police
- Mumbai Police
- Machine pistol
- Manu propria, Latin for with one's own hand
- Martinair IATA airline designator or reservation code
- Making a Packet in expense claims
- Member of Parliament
- Metropolitan Police or Municipal police
- mezzo-piano, a musical term meaning "medium-quiet" or "moderately-quiet"
- Miljöpartiet, Swedish green party
- Missouri Pacific Railroad reporting mark
- Modus ponens, Latin for mode that affirms
- Mooring Post
- Mp (digraph)
- Ministério Público
- Medida provisória
- Missionary position
MP expenses fraud - If you suspect it, report it.
MP expenses fraud - If you suspect it, report it., originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.
"Lembit Opik, the Liberal Democrat housing spokesman, was forced to pay £2,499 for a 42” plasma television himself after he bought it at the worst possible moment.
Mr Opik, who is renowned for his high-profile relationships, bought the television in his constituency of Montgomeryshire, Wales, on April 24. Twelve days later, he was re-elected with an increased majority, but by then it was too late.
His claim for expenses for his flat in south-east London, which he bought in 1997, was reduced by £2,499.
An official in the Commons fees office annotated his claim form with the words “NOT ALLOWED (purchased during dissolution)”. Mr Opik has claimed a total of £68,031 for the flat since 2004. Last year, he claimed £12,655 for extensive renovation work. This included a new kitchen, repainting throughout and the installation of wooden flooring in his bedroom."
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5314613/...
"Sir Michael Spicer, the Conservatives’ most senior backbench MP, claimed £5,650 in nine months for his garden to be maintained. In December 2006, he submitted a detailed invoice which included “hedge cutting ... helipad”, although he claimed last night that the “helipad” was a “family joke”. The Conservative grandee successfully claimed for the costs of hanging a chandelier in his main manor house. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5310200/MPs-expenses-Paying-bills-for-Tory-grandees.html
"Douglas Hogg, the former agriculture secretary, submitted a claim form including more than £2,000 for the moat around his country estate to be cleared. The taxpayer also helped meet the cost of a full-time housekeeper, including her car. The public finances also helped pay for work to Mr Hogg’s stables and for his piano to be tuned."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5310200/MPs-expenses-Paying-bills-for-Tory-grandees.html
The most worrying aspect of this whole scandal is not the way that those on nearly three times the UK average wage abused the expenses system to pay for everything from bath plugs to moat cleaning on their country estate. The worst part is that such widespread abuse meant that huge swathes of the House of Commons were, at least in theory, open to the threat of blackmail and intimidation by anyone with access to the information. What better way of getting leverage than the possibility that juicy details about your lavish publicly funded lifestyle would find their way into the public domain?
On the other hand those in charge of the parties must have been rubbing their hands with glee knowing that party discipline could always be ensured via the use of veiled threats that such and such outlay might become the subject of investigation by the people back in their constituency.
"Yes, while I agree with your courageous moral stance on ........... I think that they fact that you are claiming for a second home despite living less than 30 miles away from parliament may look a trifle odd to the voters back home, don't you think? So, let's hear no more of this backbench rebellion nonsense, shall we?"
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Average (UK) MP's expenses cost taxpayer £118,000
The average MP cost taxpayers £118,000 in allowances and expenses last year, it was revealed yesterday when the House of Commons opened its books in an attempt to counter accusations of fiddling and sleaze.
MPs are paid £57,485, but figures published for the first time show that the additional total allowances have climbed to £78m, an increase of more than £20m within two years.
Amounts paid out for housing, constituency offices, staff, travel, computers and other items, released as part of the move towards freedom of information, varied widely between neighbouring MPs in the same political parties, the figures show.
The Commons figures were made public as a report by the senior salaries review board recommended a particularly harsh deal for MPs and ministers, pegging salary rises next year to a below inflation 2% and increasing by 1% contributions to an admittedly generous pension scheme.
Peers, however, are in line for a boost of up to 20% under proposals to raise daily atten dance allowances by £11 to £75, overnight expenses from £128 to £150, and daily office awards from £53.50 to £65.
MPs have enjoyed a number of sizeable pay rises and holding down next April's award will avoid a possible controversy before an expected general election in May.
Sir Archy Kirkwood, the Liberal Democrat MP who speaks for the Commons commission which published the expenses figures, said: "This is a significant step towards openness and accountability and I welcome it. The taxpayers can really see how their money is being spent."
Sir Archy, MP for rural Roxburgh and Berwickshire, may have been relieved to discover he claimed several thousands of pounds less than the average in 2003-4.
MPs are meant to produce receipts for bills of more than £250 and publication of detailed figures follows a series of disputes over expenses claims, culminating in £90,000 repaid by Michael Trend, Conservative MP for Windsor, for a London home he did not possess. Mr Trend is to stand down at the election.
The bulk of claims cover staff costs, although MPs from the Speaker, Michael Martin, down have been criticised in the media for employing relatives.
An out-of-town allowance up to a maximum £20,033 open to all MPs except those representing inner London constituencies has also proved to be controversial, with some parliamentarians buying flats from which they keep any capital gains when they retire or lose their seats.
The £80,836 claimed by Tony Blair put him in the bottom 10 MPs. But the prime minister, who has accommodation in Downing Street and Chequers provided by the state, was still able to claim to run his Sedgefield constituency home, which doubles as an office, as were other cabinet ministers with grace-and-favour apartments, including John Prescott, Margaret Beckett and David Blunkett.
The Tory leader, Michael Howard, claimed £126,658 and the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, £121,630 in 2003-04.
The highest sum claimed was £168,889, by Claire Curtis-Thomas, Labour MP for Crosby, and the least, £56,657, by Mr Trend since his fall from grace.
Top of the travel claims was a Scottish MP, East Lothian's Anne Picking, with £39,744, while Siobhain McDonagh, of Mitcham and Mordern, spent more than £40,000 on paper and postage to write to her constituents.
Stephen Pound, Ealing North MP, who claimed £111,000 in 2003-04, said it was the equivalent of 3p each year for each of his electors.
"This is not about filling our boots," he said. "This is not about trousering a lot of money. This is about the money it takes to do the job."
The senior salaries review board recommended that judges' salaries go up by 2.5% and senior military officers' by 2.8%, with senior civil servants receiving up to 9%.
Both peers and MPs are to lose their generous 57p mileage allowance for their first 20,000 miles of motoring. It will be cut to 40p a mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p a mile thereafter.
MPs' staff allowance goes up from £66,458 a year to £72,000 and to more than £80,000 for London MPs.
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/oct/22/houseofcommons.uk
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