Labour plan expenses free-for-all
Corbyn ally who paid back £2,000 after scandal says MPs should be given payments without claims
PARLIAMENTARY expenses should be scrapped and MPs trusted with an allowance because the current procedure is a time consuming “unnecessary chore”, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s most senior allies has said. Paul Flynn, the shadow leader of the House of Commons, who responds for Labour on expenses, said that the parliamentary watchdog was a “bureaucratic ornament” which should be scrapped and MPs sent automatic payments without having to submit expense claims.
He said that trying to reform the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) would be like “polishing dung” and warned that MPs “resent” having to submit expenses claims because it takes too much time.
The MP added that scrapping the old expenses system – which did not require all receipts to be filed for claims under £250 – has led to “hours of tedious frustrating trawling through a bureaucratic morass of rules that are complex and tedious”.
He said the new system “robs MPs and our staff of much of their most precious possession – time”.
The proposal was criticised last night by a fellow Labour MP as looking like a “pay rise by any other name”.
Mr Flynn added: “There is continuing resentment against unnecessary chores that diminish MPs’ ability to do their numberless essential tasks.” In the MPs’ expenses scandal, exposed by The Daily Telegraph in 2009, Mr Flynn was found to have claimed £7,052 for a new kitchen, £1,153 carpets and £1,200 decoration for his London property in 2005, before selling it and moving to a new £275,000 flat. He was required to repay more than £2,000 for mortgage interest following the scandal.
His comments provoked a furious reaction among MPs. One warned that the suggestion showed Mr Corbyn’s team was “completely detached from reality”. Mr Flynn’s predecessor as shadow leader of the house, Chris Bryant, said the proposal would simply reward “lazy MPs” and “would not go down very well with our constituents”.
In an apparent warning to Labour colleagues, Mr Flynn suggested that his “provocative ideas” could form a key part of the submission, adding that they would satisfy the need for “more fundamental reform”.
In an email sent to all Labour MPs last night he said: “IPSA was misconceived in panic and fear. All parties sought a lifeline to escape from the
nightmare of the expenses scandal. IPSA was the wrong solution.”
He also states that the watchdog, set up in the wake of public disgust at the MPs’ expenses scandal to manage and rule on claims, costs too much and takes up too much staff time.
The 2009 expenses scandal resulted in five MPs being sent to prison – all from the Labour Party.
Labour MPs reacted with anger last night after receiving the email. One MP, who did not want to be named, said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s team are detached from reality. How could anyone imagine that the way to prevent MPs from breaking the rules is to abolish the rules? It’s further proof Jeremy Corbyn’s top team couldn’t care less what the public think.”
A Labour spokesman said: “What Paul Flynn has suggested is not Labour Party policy.”
Mr Flynn’s email states: “The previous lax rules of the Fees Office invited abuse and were rightly abolished. The most efficient best value alternative would have been to replace expenses at reduced total cost with an automatic allowance. The pendulum swung from permissiveness to minute control of claims large and small.” The MP added that the public still thought MPs use the system “for our own ends”.
Ipsa announced a salary rise of £1,000 for MPs in February, just months after they were awarded a controversial 10 per cent pay increase.
Mr Flynn states at the end of the note that he is expressing his personal opin- ions. However, as shadow leader of the House of Commons he represents Labour’s policy on expenses in Parliament. His views prompted concern last night as Labour MPs warned he could damage the party’s stance with his desire to scrap the expenses watchdog.
He suggested a flat rate allowance calculated on the distance an MP’s constituency from Westminster to be paid automatically without having to submit receipts, adding that it would be “acceptable even if it meant reduction in the amounts that MPs receive”. It is not clear if this would include staffing and office costs as well as travel.
Mr Bryant said: “Setting up a whole new system all over again and awarding ourselves a flat rate payment will not go down very well with our constituents.
“If you’re going to get £250 a month whether or not you travel from Westminster to your constituency and back again then that might limit the number of times you travel. This would just reward lazy MPs. We’ve only just had a pay rise and I think to most ordinary voters this will look like another pay rise by any other name.”