New sleaze head implies MPs dodge tax

First public outing in the job as chair of the Committee for Standards in Public Life (replacing Sir Alistair Graham) and Sir Christopher Kelly has shown he is prepared to dive into difficult, controversial, deeply political subjects. Like MPs pay. He suggested - stressing this was his "personal view" - that MPs expenses have been set higher than other professions in order to compensate for low salaries. “In the past MPs’ allowances were set higher than they would have been in other walks of life partly because of guilt because of the level of pay that MPs have,” he said. This would, of course, amount to a tax dodge.

A much broader review is now expected on the whole question of salaries and allowances and Harriet Harman suggested in the Commons the current system will not last long. Will the powers that be use the opportunity to end a not dissimilar discrepancy in the Lords?

By the way, the Tories say they have done the Parliamentary arithmetic and believe that the government already have enough votes in the bank to get through the MPs pay vote on January 24. The Tory front bench, like Lib Dems and Labour, will be voting for 1.9 per cent rather than 2.8 per cent. But saying this line out loud suggests that the party is quite relaxed about the way their backbenchers go through the division lobby...

Comments

[David Boothroyd]

Two points. Sir Christopher Kelly is wrong; the reason MPs get substantially higher allowances than similarly paid professions is that a whole load of things that are paid for collectively by employers in other fields of work are left up to the individual MP to pay for, and then recharged to expenses. (How many journalists have to buy their own office equipment and recharge it?) The main item in MP's expenses is the cost of maintaining homes in their constituency and in London, which is something the public have forced them to do by insisting on the MP's presence in the constituency, and voting against MPs who visit only rarely.

Secondly, Sir Christopher Kelly did not himself make the linkage between MP income coming in the form of expenses and the avoidance of tax. It's a bit of a low blow to make the link yourself and then assume that he meant to.