It was a long, long press conference that was half empty by the end. But for some reason Sir Christopher Kelly never called on me during the Q&A. Perhaps he knew what I was going to ask: has the Committee come to a view on wife swapping?
This is a pressing issue for the 200 odd MPs who hire members of their families. In the panic over the Kelly proposals, which recommend phasing out the practice over the next five years, many MPs have been mulling the option of employing each other’s relatives. Wife swapping sounds terribly amusing, but it is a serious issue for some MP’s families who would otherwise face a severe cut in their household income.
Well, the good news for MPs is that Kelly doesn’t seem to mind. “If you want to employ somebody else and they are good at their job why would any party want to object to that,” he told Jim when approached at the end of the session. He added, of course, that he would want “more open competition for these posts”. But well-qualified wives should be in a strong position.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
