Read how Parliament defends the system of MPs' expenses

On Thursday and Friday, I was in the Freedom of Information tribunal listening to Andrew Walker, the House of Commons director of resources since 1997, illuminate how the system of MPs expenses' works (hence light blogging over this period).

Much newsworthy emerged (see here and here), including a £400 monthly food allowance that is not documented anywhere by Parliament (although it was spotted here and here), and the shocking lack of oversight until very recently. And that even now fishtanks can be claimed.

Here is the most comprehensive transcript and notes I could record, the only such note that will be placed in the public domain (no recording devices were allowed), with issues in bold and interesting answers underlined. The mistakes are my own, there are some sections omitted and corrections welcome.

Day 1

The Commons Resources Department decides whether to reimburse items of furniture and electronics by comparing it to a John Lewis list, and insists that it does not accept items at the "luxury end of the market". Before 2003 there was virtually no scrutiny on MPs' second-home allowance, with Mr Walker saying that there were "only very cursory checks on items". The National Audit Office examines a handful of claims. Last year it checked 227 claims, and this is likely to be fewer this year because no problems were found.

Asked about the idea behind the system, Mr Walker suggested Parliament believes that scrutiny rests with the electorate rather than in the expenses department. "Members are elected by voters in their constituencies to represent them so constitutionally they are accountable and ultimately to the electorate so this is reflected in (the system)." He added: "There is an ultimate responsibility for the member because of the constitutional position. There are limits ...

... therefore to which I or my staff can look beyond the claims and the information we receive. Therefore, for the most part we don't walk into constituency offices. What we do check is the original claim is sensible."

Asked about extracting equity from houses where the taxpayer meets the mortgage costs, Mr Walker said that since 2006 MPs cannot remortgage a property simply to extract equity for personal use. “We do allow for remortgaging to get better interest rates if switching mortgage providers or if it was for a change to the property. This includes a larger mortgage to afford to carry out repairs or perhaps in one or two cases extra bedrooms because the member had a new baby."

Asked if the system essentially allowed MPs to write cheques to themselves, Mr Walker said: "I hope the tribunal will agree the arrangements now are that is now not the case. I have described a significant tightening up. Even in 1997 that statement was challengeable and that wouldn't be the case now."

Asked if they can buy large plasma TVs. "I am glad to say that story was misconceived. It is unlikely we would allow a plasma; we have a price cut-off. A fish tank may be claimable but interestingly a claim was brought to my attention, which I rejected, and iPods we reject. iPods are personal items and not something needed to live away from home." (More on iPods later though).

Asked why some claim hotels as well as second homes: "I can think of one minor exception, which relates to one or two Scottish members who can claim because of the length of journey need a hotel on the way."

Asked why the additional costs allowance is described as being needed for "juggling between work and social engagements", he said: "Because a member needs to work and live in both places so a member typically has a job both in Westminster and the constituency. They have to carry it out across the whole week. That means from the premises they are both trying to live a personal life with a family and parliamentary business. This includes managing constituency work, seeing people, and the provision of accommodation helps to facilitate this.
"My opinion is the allowance is for the additional costs of living away from home. The reason why it is sensible to support MPs away from home is because in one place and the other it is trying to balance personal and private. MPs might be similar to some sorts of professional jobs."

Asked if MPs could claim if they went home for a family medical emergency: “They might or might not. If an MP had to return for a constituency meeting and dealt with a family crisis, we look at each claim on its merits. If an MP has no family and no social life and lives for his job, he is still going to need the additional costs allowance because he is still going to live in two places.
"I haven't come across any such, one might say, such a sad individual who has no social life and my experience is that MPs are not in that category."

Asked what happened before 2003: "The degree of scrutiny was less and the extent to which it got challenged would be less than now. What I cannot say, and none of the people then working in the area are now on the staff, there is an element of guesswork. We known we were not as assiduous and my supposition is that if someone put a mortgage claim in and it looked alright (it would have been paid)."

On food bills: "We don't want your Tesco's or Sainsbury's receipts. Even if you are doing (expenses for) several weeks, if it is no more than £400 a month, and £250 per item." Why this does not appear in the Green Book: "My understanding is that members are well aware. I am unable to tell you how they are well aware of it."

Asked whether the food allowance should appear in the Green Book: "There is no should about it. The Green Book is approved by the Members Estimate Committee. The Green Book is not an exhaustive list of every detail."

Asked if this makes the Green Book either misleading or economical with the truth, Mr Walker said: "It is not and nor is the Green Book intended to be a rule book of every last detail and situation which might occur. There is a judgment about how much detail (is needed)."

Asked why the Senior Salaries Review Body, which examined expenses recently , did not mention the £400 rule bill, Mr Walker replied that it was "not very satisfactory".

The tribunal was presented with the instructions for Commons staff on processing expenses, known as the desk instructions. Asked whether the document was different in 2002-3 before the changes took place, Mr Walker said: "Yes, they did not exist in this form at all. Systems were different, the computer system was different and most of it was done manually by learning from others who did it so the desk instructions came along with the changes to the system."

Asked  if the previous version was less rigorous, he replied: "Yes, because there was considerable tightening in 2003, and the system before that had been abused as the Standards and Privileges reported." Asked if there was a document at all, he replied: "Individual officers will have had their own notes."

Asked what guidance staff receive for whether a claim is reasonable: "Some of those are put in the spreadsheet. This is not an exhaustive and detailed (list) ... This, together with the training and the spreadsheets, will tell you whether you can spend on a washing machine £350 or not."

Asked if there is anything to prevent a Member of Parliament buying an iPod under the heading of food, he replied: "If they put in for food they might have bought an iPod."

Asked about the spreadsheet , he replied: "The John Lewis list is a spreadsheet with a list of goods mainly, and some services, that have been asked for or claimed by members, and what a reasonable amount for those goods would be for a pay, and what an unreasonable amount and queried. You have not got a copy." Asked to produce a copy, he replied: "It does not exist in paper form and whether it can be printed I don't know."

Commenting on the Times story that a makeover of the Clerk’s house had cost £100,000, he said: "(They asked) why did you spend £900 on plinths rather than buy a fibreglass one for £200. You could say that there is a perfectly proper question, but if they spend all their time answering these questions they will not do anything. It might lead to further questions or some media interference with family life: I am taking the consequences rather than what is necessarily innate in the information itself."

Asked whether he was seriously suggesting that revealing the amount claimed by member X in a certain month was going to make it impossible for them to do their job, he replied: "That is not what I said here. It might do, it might not. I don't know. We have touched on cases we have seen in the media recently, but some of those turn on quite small things."

Asked how the media focused on small details, he replied: "Well if you realise the information requested, which in each case information is about the detailed use of additional costs allowance for a particular year, then as I have said I think it may in itself intrude into personal life. It may also lead to further questions and pressure on members to justify themselves or to give explanations which distract them from their parliamentary life."

Suggesting that it was ridiculous to say that this level of disclosure would put people off being an MP, he replied: "I personally think creating an environment in which representatives of the British public can operate with some degree of privacy is a necessary perquisite for attracting people into politics."
This is sought, he suggested, by "the media or people who wish them ill in other ways on grounds of security".

Asked how the disclosures would impair their job, Mr Walker replied: "The ability of a member to best represent depends on them having sufficient freedom so to do in a number of ways. Freedom from threat of security attack, freedom from undue intrusion into private lives. What we are saying, taking the additional costs allowance claims, what you are doing is preparing a peep hole into the private lives of a member, which will either distract them or lead them into additional questions which they feel they have to defend themselves ... even if they are perfectly sensible because there is a great desire to look at the private lives of public individuals. But there needs to be some protection."

Questioned about the use of FOI to secure this information, he replied: "It is difficult for me to distinguish a genuine public interest in the sense of the FOI act and what I might call public curiosity about things, as we saw in Monday's Times, where it seems to be more curiosity that genuine public interest involved."

Asked about the Conway affair, he said: "Mr Conway is nothing to do with the additional costs allowance. Parliament's self regulation has had an effect which has certainly created great interest quite properly that an MP was found by Parliament not to have paid a family member an appropriate amount of work for the money he was paid. The individual (has been dealt with by Parliament)."

Asked why he had used the Times story about the refurbishment of the grace-and-favour house of the Commons clerk to illustrate what he said was the potential for greater disclosure to distract MPs, he said: "I referred to it to illustrate that if such a lens was put on the life of MPs then rather like that article there might very well be a degree of curiosity type of interest that went beyond the necessary public interest."

Asked about the Wintertons, who continue to claim rent on a home for which they have paid off the mortgage and transferred to a trust, and whether this episode vindicates public concern about the additional costs allowance, he said: "I disagree. I am in a slight difficulty. I know a lot about this but I am somewhat constrained on commenting because I have full details of it but am concerned the information is not public and (still) confidential. I am disputing that there is abuse in this case."

Day 2

Proceedings began with the announcement that Mr Walker would not be producing the John Lewis list in open tribunal. He explained the system further: "The general guidance we use is the John Lewis website prices, which give us a guide to prices. We don't hold that and we don't download it: we simply access it on the day. The other thing we have is a precedent list of guide maximums of certain goods drawn from the same source and consists of a relatively small number of items of which I have brought copies. We do not make this available to Parliament, this is guidance for our own staff. My concern is not to withhold it from the public but because it is a guide to staff and my concern is that the maximum price will become the going rate."

Asked why MPs needed a £400-a-month un-receipted food allowance, Mr Walker replied: "If Members did not eat they might not be able to perform their duties. The Green Book makes it clear that it is intended that food and the other aspects of what they are allowed to claim is for that purpose. The clear meaning of the Green Book is that members need to eat and they do incur additional costs."

Asked why thye Tory MP Ben Wallace had claimed hotel bills as well as rent, Walker said: "No, I have no idea. For all I know that claim is rejected." Counsel revealed that he was paid the full amount.

Asked why he believed that the additional costs allowance should not be broken down publicly, he said that it promoted: "Prurient interest and curiosity. The quad bike (for David Maclean, the former Tory whip, which was revealed in the Mail on Sunday last year) was to do with his disability."

Asked why MPs living within commuting distance of London could still claim the Additional Costs Allowance, he said: "The norm would be if a member owns a home in the constituency and in Central London in an appropriate place to live close to Parliament then it would be unusual for there to be expenditure on rent or mortgage. In that case the ACA would be more living expenses. The reason I am not ruling it out entirely [is because] it may well be that a member has a property in London and one in the constituency but the property in London is not at all convenient for Parliament and they rent."

Asked whether they stopped MPs realising equity by remortgaging their properties, he replied: "Years ago we would not have done. We would not have even asked. I think that was stopped in the 2006 Green Book."

Asked if it was therefore quite possible that people who owned homes abused the system like this, he replied: "If it is the case we only brought that rule in 2006 then theoretically that is the case. We tightened up the rules [because] we identified this as a possibility. We were probably asked if it was allowed and looked at the rules. I am not aware of that happening in any widespread [way]. I am not aware of a case where a remortgage happened to withdraw equity."

Asked if there were any restrictions on the main home location, he replied: "There are members that have main home not in Westminster or constituencies. I cannot comment on Mr Wilkinson [a former MP with a main home on the Isle of Man] but I am aware of the case. We do not allow a main home to be overseas. The point about your main home is that it is a main home not a holiday home. We ask them to nominate their main home and we do not then say we don’t believe you. But if we receive evidence they are not really living there most of the time. We do look at travel patterns from time to time. In most cases it is blindingly obvious."

Asked why the SSRB report asked for greater auditing, ignoring the auditing that already goes on (the tribunal later suggested that the auditing envisaged by the SSRB was different), Walker said: "I was taken aback by the SSRB because neither me nor my people were consulted. When I asked the NAO they told me they had not been consulted. There is an inconsistency and because it seemed to be apparent that is what does happen. If you look at last year's experience at 227 claims, quite a large number, well over 5 or 10 per cent, have their claims looked at by the NAO. Then Recommendation 18 says [someone should] audit the 'expenses' – ie what the MP does those expenses.
"I was disappointed we had not been consulted. The suggestions might be somewhat otiose because it is already done. Partly because a number of suggestions by the SSRB struck the Commons authorities as impractical and there was manifestly no consensus, the House referred all of these to the Members Estimate committee and the Speaker has announced that review will take place in the Autumn."

Asked whether releasing the information may improve public trust, he replied: "There is a lot of speculation about. I am not clear if that is whether providing full information would end up ending damaging speculation."

He was asked why the Green Book says the ACA is for expenses "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred when staying overnight away from their main residence for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties" when he previously referred to paying it when there was a joint purpose, such as travelling back to the constituency both for work and to deal with a family emergency. He replied: "In the way the scheme is operated normally, if it passes the test of being allowable then it is allowable and we would not proportion it. Then we would not normally ask if you had more than one purpose."

Asked whether this would apply to a television, he said: "You may need it for political purposes. You may need the news but you may watch a video. You may watch party political stuff."

Asked whether this meant that he did not actually apply the requirement that the ACA is exclusively for performing parliamentary purposes, he replied: "That phraseology used to be tax [related] but you will notice that it is adapted for the ACA and that here we are saying it is expenses that put you in a position to do your duties.  In a tax context 'wholly' means you ought to apportion but we have never done this."

Asked where the definitive details of expenses were, he replied: "We find them in a number of places. It is in desk introductions and in precedent records that we hold on computer but those change from time to time. This is a very small system we are dealing with a relatively small number of claims. We have not sought to legislate for every possible eventuality. £400 came about in that sort of way. There was not a limit, and we felt [one was needed].

Asked whether there was anything in the system that checked that the expenses are genuinely additional, he said: "That relies on the member telling us that it is genuinely additional. That is not to say we would never talk to members. The nature of this very small system, I have a team of five people, not the people who validate, we have hundreds of calls a week where we are talking them through. There is very much a culture of discussions and that is how we draw up our precedents."

Asked about claiming for utlities and which part is ‘additional’: "We say by and large you are spending three days in an additional home and three days in a main home which you cannot claim anything about . So we do not say will you please apportion this. We regard the costs attaching to the [second] home as additional costs."

Asked whether the authorities have thought of making MPs specify which bills are "additional" for parliamentary purposes only rather than allowing them to claim all the bills for the second home, Walker said: "I have certainly thought about it and it is tried and tested in public administration. The view we have come to is that the costs of trying to do that by in effect you ought really then to look at the additional costs in one location or in the other. If you add all of the costs together, it might come out as a very similar figure but it is a lot of work getting there. This is basically a pretty simple system, which says if you are living away from home we accept that when you additional everything. Even the tax authorities accept [this principle]. There is a little bit of pragmatism about this."

Comments

[JD]

Are there any members of the UK Parliament - members of the House of Commons or Lords-- and senior officials of each- who will say "I have never claimed an expense which was not for a genuine cost incurred over and above the expense of my normal life, in pursuit of my work as public representative or officer. You may inspect all my expense claims and show them openly to the public" ?

This is a really serious matter and you are right as journalists to pursue it. If we believe, as a country, in Parliament, then this accumulation of revelations should raise the question whether there should be a general election with a whole new set of members.

[Chuck Unsworth]

Amazingly poor defence from Walker for a series of very poor decisions and apparent policies.

Never knowingly undersold, eh? Of course not. None so ignorant as those who cannot be bothered to look. This man is deeply complicit.

Time for full scrutiny from external auditors rather than this remarkably cosy arrangement.

[Remember 1820]

This question of MP's expenses, along with their pay, should be resolved by a truly independent body.

It is a public scandal what they get paid for, by the public purse.

They should be more tranparent like the system that they have at the Holyrood Parliament.

MP's should be dragged kicking and squeeling into the 21st century.

Their time of ripping us all off are up.

I suppose there must be some honourable gentlemen amongst them, but I suspect too few.