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In some ways and based upon whenever I’ve seen him interviewed, I have quite liked Tony McNaulty because he seemed a far more solid chap than the average Labour Cabinet Minister. However his involvement in the current Parliamentary expenses scandal and his lack of honesty merely demonstrates that there is absolutely no one in this Government of any integrity what so ever.

It is also perfectly clear that there needs to be a radical reform of how much, what and under what rules, any Member of Parliament gets paid, the current situation being clearly no longer tenable and clearly, MPs of all parties being far too venial to produce decent and transparent changes to clean up Parliament’s oh so tarnished reputation.

It Beggars Belief…

We have suffered 12 years of the most prurient, nit picking, nosey, interfering and malevolent Government who whilst oh so keen to tell us what to do: “Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t get fat, don’t argue with us because we know better and no, you can’t have the promised Referendum…”

And yet for all this, tell lies, treat us like the village idiots, live high on the hog with our money and refuse to apologise for their mistakes, we really do need to clean this stable thoroughly.

Tony McNaulty

Tony McNaulty lived in a house in his Harrow constituency which is I believe, in his name, his Parents lived with him and still reside there. In 2002, he remarried and moved in with his new wife who has property in Hammersmith and claimed between then and January of this year some £60,000 in expenses for a second home. On the face of it and according to the current rules, he has complied with the letter if not the spirit of these arrangements.

What really pisses me off personally is not the money but his statement as to why he stopped claiming for this constituency home: “He had stopped claiming the allowance in January because the fall in interest rates meant he could afford to pay the mortgage from his MP’s salary.” which is total bollocks.

If he had said that due to the public scrutiny of MPs allowances and expenses following the Derek Conway affair, although he had complied fully with the rules, as a Government Minister, he felt that it would not look ‘appropriate’ to most members of the public to continue claiming in the current climate surrounding such matters…blah, blah, blah…

That would be “honest” but  “because of falling interest rates…” on the other hand makes the man look stupid and worse than that, he seems to think that we the electorate are totally stupid if he thinks we will accept such a weak excuse, even a child would be smart enough to do better than that.

The Solution is Simple

The current system is designed to hide and obscure the cost of individual MPs. Also particularly with MPs but it applies to most Public Sector workers, we can no longer afford their Final Salary pension schemes and over time, all of the Public Sector will move to a “Money Purchase” scheme the same as the rest of the workforce in the Private Sector these days.

However, it will take 20-40 years to complete that change but because of the nature of their employment, there is nothing to stop changing MP’s pension status immediately. Any benefits in the old scheme merely become “paid up” and they join the new scheme immediately.

All we need to do is examine what the “Overall Cost” of an MP actually is and totally ignore their salary +allowances+expenses+John Lewis List+pensions and arrive at a gross figure which may well amount to something like £220,000 a year. The only other consideration is just how much more is added for Ministerial or Leader status to this.

The next thing is to change their status from employee to self-employed on a contract that stipulates a compulsory pension contribution into a personal pension scheme of their choice. You pay each MP the gross sum minus say the 10% pension contribution.

At a stroke, you move the whole thing away from Parliament. If someone wants to employ their spouse or children to help them do their work, it will be the Inland Revenue which will decide whether the expense deduction is legitimate against their ‘rules’ not, a Parliamentary Committee.

As the self employed are such an important element in the UK economy, it might ensure better legislation because every “exemption” that MPs take for themselves, will equally apply to the self employed. We might see an end to some of the rules being applied to husband and wife businesses for example.

It Has to Change…

This rotten Speaker we currently have is totally useless. On his watch he has allowed the reputation of the House to totally collapse, one can only hope he announces his resignation during these next 6 months, we need someone decent in the job to start the ball rolling and cleaning up the House.

There will be those who will genuinely oppose the “House loosing control of its affairs and therefore its independence…” but frankly, these will be the same people who surrendered our sovereignty to Brussels and as “career politicians” have allowed Parliament to degenerate into an “Elective Dictatorship” with a maximum duration of 5 years.

Sitting on the Government benches, they slavishly follow every directive in order to further their personal careers and care not a fig for the Country and the people they are supposed to represent. This will also be the same following the next General Election and regardless of who wins, we the electorate need to call time on this charade.