TOO MUCH MOANING...

News that the Committee on Members Expenses has recommended that MPs should scrutinise their own expenses should come as no surprise. Some MPs have called for the reinstatement of the much discredited Fees' Office which was deeply involved in the revelations in 2009. If these moaning MP's get their way, then we could be one small step away from returning to the old discredited expenses system, which turned the House of Commons into an old fashioned sleazy gentleman's club, and claims for duck houses and moat cleaning would not be far away. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) established in 2010, has made sue that MPs have to account for every penny of taxpayer–funded expenditure.

Since then MPs have been moaning that the system is overly bureaucratic not to mention that some MP's object to having to account for every penny of taxpayer–funded expenditure. The Committee on Members Expenses has called for the Ipsa to be stripped of responsibility for administering expenses payments by April 2012. The Committee (chaired by Conservative MP Adam Afriyie) has accused Ipsa of damaging democracy and called for it to be stripped of key responsibilities. They want Ipsa to simply regulate the system, with a department created within the Commons to control payments - this would effectively re-establishing the old Fees Office.

Oddly enough, I suspect that most members of the public have little or no problem with MPs being required to account for their expense claims in public. The Daily Telegraph, which broke the scandal of MP's expense claims has noted that a recent survey conducted for Ipsa by YouGov for Ipsa suggests strong public opposition to a system of allowances for MPs - 69% believe MPs should continue to make claims for costs incurred and those claims should continue to be published. It is quite amazing at how rapidly out of touched some 'elected' can become once they become ensconced in the Westminster Village.