The naming and shaming of MPs who are abusing the expenses system is becoming a Sunday ritual. Each week the papers carry a fresh set of revelations; each week public cynicism about our elected representatives becomes more deeply entrenched. This would be bad enough if the MPs involved in these scandals were merely time-serving backbenchers. But the culprits include the holders of some of the great offices of state. Worst of all, the guilty seem incapable of seeing what is wrong with their presumption that the public should pay for everything from their bath plugs to their holiday homes. The real scandal is not that the Home Secretary’s husband is watching porn movies but that, in charging these films to expenses, the couple revealed that, in their house, everything is billed to the taxpayer unless otherwise stated.
These MPs are bringing democratic politics into disrepute. Their behaviour makes it all too easy to believe that all politicians are on the make, and on the take, and involved in a shoddy conspiracy against the public. It is no surprise that more than two thirds of voters now think that a majority of parliamentarians are fiddling the system. History shows that contempt for representative democracy and an economic depression can be a dangerously toxic brew. At precisely the moment when trust in the polity needs to be strong, it is in the gutter.
Gordon Brown has tried to dismiss these sleaze stories by declaring that he is concentrating on more important matters: the economic crisis and the terrorist threat. But it is hard to think of a more important issue than the legitimacy of our system of government. In truth, the Prime Minister just doesn’t have the stomach to tackle this problem. He is too scared of what full disclosure might reveal, what reform might be necessary, and who might oppose it.
David Cameron must lance this boil at the earliest opportunity. He has been hesitant on the subject so far — a sure sign that he knows that too many of his own MPs have also worked the system. But, assuming he wins the election, as a new Prime Minister he will have the authority to see through changes and face down any recalcitrant MPs.
The principal imperative is that the new system must be transparent. The electorate should know what MPs are claiming for and why. The first step towards this goal must be the timely publication of every expenses form. Disclosure would cut out many of the more dubious claims, as it has at the Scottish Parliament.
Second homes are a trickier issue. MPs do work unpredictable hours and it would reduce their effectiveness if they had to commute for hours every day the Commons was sitting. The second-home allowance, however, throws up the questions of who should pay for the furnishings and the bills and who should benefit from any increase in value. The current system has demonstrated that this kind of ambiguity is an almost intractable problem. A better solution would be for modest flats in central London to be bought and assigned to MPs who needed them.
Some expenses, such as staff costs, are legitimate. An able team can help a Member of Parliament in his constituency work and in holding the executive to account. Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, who boasts about not hiring anyone, is not a role model: most MPs need two staff members to keep their offices running smoothly. But on the principle that Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, there should be a bar on MPs hiring family members.
MPs are the principal protagonists in a representative democracy. They make the laws which shape and bring order to society, and hold the executive to account. Patently, such an arrangement does not come for free. But at the same time, taxpayers must know where their money is going, and that it is being spent honourably. At present, to a quite extraordinary extent, this spending is subverting, rather than shoring up, the smooth operation of the polity. It is hard to think of a more pressing task for the next Prime Minister.
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