MPs have given themselves a new £25 “subsistence rate” for any night spent away from their main residence. This fact had passed most people by until the Telegraph’s splash today.
Most controversial will be the fact that MPs won’t need any receipts for this subsidy, for all the talk in recent weeks of the need for total transparency. Bear in mind that MPs made a big deal about the fact that “all” claims from zero upwards would now need receipts.
Yet MPs are furious about some of the claims in the article. Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat MP – and formerly on the “members estimate committee” – has made counter-claims on several key points.
1] The Telegraph says this decision was “drawn up in secret” and “published discreetly” on July 13.
Harvey says that the allowance was in the revised “Green Book” of parliamentary expenses, published in March (five months ago). July saw a further revision of the Green Book but this was already in the text. Dizzy has already spotted this.
2] In the hours after Michael Martin’s resignation, the departing Speaker and Harriet Harman both made statements setting out new rules governing the additional cost allowance. The Telegraph claims that neither mentioned overnight subsistence.
Harvey says this is not true. According to Hansard for May 19, Mr Martin said at 7.31 pm: “The following only should be claimable: rent, including ground rent, hotel accommodation, overnight subsistence, mortgage interest, council tax, service charges, utility bills (etc)”
Arguably Martin could have been more specific that the overnight subsistence would not require any proof of spending, however.
3] The Telegraph claims that MPs could claim £9,125 a year without any receipts whatsoever.
Harvey points out that this would mean claiming for all 365 days of the year. By definition, however, MPs can only classify a building as their main residence if they spend more than half of their time there. This implies that it would be impossible to claim much more than £4,600 of the subsistence allowance without breaching the rules. After all, it would be paper proof that the “main residence” was nothing of the kind.
4] The Telegraph claims that John Bercow has “done nothing” to prevent the new payment.
Harvey points out that this was all agreed long before Bercow became Speaker. He adds that it was suggested by the National Audit Office – Whitehall’s auditors – as a more acceptable arrangement than the former £400 a month “food” allowance which involved no receipts. Originally the subsidy was suggested by the members estimate committee in July 2008 (over a year ago) at £30. It was revised downwards after it emerged that the Whitehall norm for civil servants is £25.
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Leaving aside Mr Harvey’s protestations, however, this is still a valid story. As the Telegraph points out, Harman had specifically promised “there would need to be receipts for all claims“. Alan Duncan described as “unacceptable” that the second home allowance was paid out without receipts. Harvey told me it was wrong to expect MPs to keep receipts for newspapers and orange juices acquired “between Paddington and Westminster”. But we were told that the expenses threshold had been brought down to zero.
You would have thought that MPs’ reputations couldn’t fall much further, but perhaps not.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
