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MPs set to vote on their expenses MPs vote to keep homes expenses
(1 day later)
MPs are set to vote on changes to their expenses and how their pay is decided as part of efforts to boost the public's faith in the system. MPs have voted to keep their £24,000 second home allowances, but have decided not to award themselves above-inflation pay rises.
They will debate proposals put forward in two separate reports aimed at making the process fairer and more open. They rejected tougher auditing and an alternative expenses regime proposed by a Commons review.
The Baker Review on pay recommended cutting MPs out of the process altogether for deciding what they earn, the option favoured by the government. The Tories and Lib Dems condemned the decision but MPs who backed keeping the allowances said they were fair.
The Members Estimates Committee would include tighter checks on expenditure. But MPs voted for a 2.25% pay rise, rejecting a proposed £650-a-year "catch-up" payment.
The proposals would spell the end of the so-called "John Lewis" list - used by Commons officials to determine whether an expenditure claim submitted by an MP is reasonable. 'Own-goal'
Receipts A review by the Commons Members Estimate Committee had recommended the additional costs allowance (ACA) be replaced and an end to the so-called "John Lewis list" - the use of public money to pay for items like new kitchens and household goods such as TVs.
The Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) would be replaced by an overnight expenses allowance of £19,600 a year for accommodation. However, MPs voted by a majority of 28 to retain the ACA and the list, and to have their spending looked at only by internal, rather than external, auditors.
MPs would also be given £30 a day subsistence allowance without receipts, up to a maximum of £4,600 every year. It gives the impression of an abuse of public expenditure David Winnick, Labour MP class="" href="/1/hi/uk_politics/7488639.stm">Ministers who voted to keep system class="" href="http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5053&edition=1&ttl=20080703201145">Send us your comments
But Lib Dem committee member Nick Harvey said he expected average claims to fall sharply, and said rules on MPs who lived together and both claimed the allowance would be tightened. More than 30 government ministers opted to keep the ACA, including Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham and Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward.
MPs will also have to provide receipts for all other expenses from 1 April next year. At the moment they can claim for items up to £25 without receipts. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's parliamentary private secretaries Ian Austin and Angela Smith also voted in this way.
The conclusions came in a long-awaited report from the Members Estimates Committee, which has been considering how to restore public trust in MPs' expenses following the Derek Conway case. Liberal Democrat Nick Harvey, a member of the estimate committee, said: "It was a total own-goal on the part of the House of Commons. An opportunity to put our house in order and be seen to put our house in order has been passed up.
End of 'gentleman's club' "They took all the nice bits of the package but not the ones they didn't like. They took the spoonful of sugar but refused the medicine."
At least one in five MPs would face "spot checks" on their expenses claims to be carried out by the National Audit Office and a full external audit on all expenses once per Parliament. For the Conservatives, shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said: "When Parliament has been under fire in the way it has been over the last few months, it is essential our leaders set the right example.
MPs representing outer London constituencies, who can currently claim the second homes allowance despite living relatively close to Westminster, could also be entitled to less - the report suggested "a phased introduction of a half-rate accommodation allowance". "David Cameron and the shadow cabinet voted for the abolition of the John Lewis list whilst Gordon Brown and his most senior ministers went Awol. They are showing blatant contempt for very real public concerns."
But MPs representing inner London constituencies, who cannot claim the allowance but get about £2,900 in a taxable supplement, should get "£7,500 a year instead to recognise "the extra costs of living and working in London, combined with the unsociable hours". After the expenses vote announcement was read out, Mr Cameron was heard to exclaim: "Where's the government?"
The committee said it wanted to introduce "a robust system of scrutiny for parliamentary allowances as a matter of urgency". 'Extraordinary situation'
One of the committee members, the Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell, said the recommendations meant that an MP's signature would no longer be accepted as a guarantee that expenses were genuine. But Don Touhig, a Labour MP and former minister who spearheaded the drive against reforms, insisted the ACA was necessary.
"The days of the gentlemen's club in the House of Commons are over," he said. He said: "I think most fair-minded people would accept that the extraordinary situation of an MP needing to live both in his or her constituency and London requires an allowance to support that cost."
'Good elements' Conservative former minister Ann Widdecombe, who backed keeping the ACA, said MPs had to "have the guts to stand up for ourselves, to defend the system and say why it is we have that system".
Freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke said she would welcome the recommendations, as long as the public could see the receipts. Otherwise they would "continue to be vilified and "continue to be ridiculed", she added.
"However, any attempt to inflate salaries or pay out lump sums must be seen as a cynical attempt by MPs to further avoid accounting directly to their constituents and as such they should be rejected," she said. MPs had been able to claim up to £250 per item for their second homes without producing receipts - but that threshold was reduced to £25 in April.
Last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman welcomed the report as a "move towards greater transparency" and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said the recommendations would "tighten up a system in desperate need of improvement". The existence of the "John Lewis" list, used by Commons officials to determine the maximum value of goods to be claimed for, became known during an information tribunal earlier this year.
Shadow Commons leader Theresa May said there were "good elements" in the report saying: "This report delivers stronger audit measures, brings the receipt threshold down to zero and, crucially, brings in independent auditors." Under the plans rejected by the House of Commons, the ACA would have been replaced by an overnight expenses allowance of £19,600 a year for accommodation.
Conway
MPs would also have been given a £30-a-day subsistence allowance without receipts, up to a maximum of £4,600 every year.
The expenses review was prompted by the furore over MP Derek Conway's payments of more than £40,000 to his son for work as a parliamentary researcher, despite him being a full-time student in Newcastle.
He was suspended from Parliament for 10 days and was ordered to repay £13,161. Mr Conway also lost the Conservative whip.
Meanwhile, MPs voted in line with the government's call to reject recommendations for above-inflation pay rises.
Earlier, Mr Brown said MPs should "recognise that the settlements in the public sector for these key workers have been around 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 (%), when they vote on this year's pay".
An independent review by Sir John Baker had recommended that MPs' pay be linked to the public sector average earnings index, and include a £650-a-year "catch-up" payment - which would amount to around 4.4% rise in total.
But the government opposed this. It wanted MPs to receive the median average of "a wide basket of public sector workers" - amounting to around 2.25%.
MPs rejected a backbench move to raise pay by 2.3% this year and about 4.7% next year.
They backed the 2.25% rise without a vote, along with a recommendation that they should no longer vote on their own pay.