Watchdog inquiry on MPs' abuse of expenses
Mar 24 2009 by Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Post
A sleaze watchdog is set to launch a wide-ranging inquiry into whether MPs abuse their expenses, after a second Government minister came under fire over claims for a second home.
Redditch MP Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was widely criticised after admitting she received £116,000 to help pay for her “second home” in her Worcestershire constituency, after designating a property she shared with her sister in London as her main residence.
Now employment Minister Tony McNulty has become caught up in the row over expenses when it was revealed he has claimed £60,000 for staying at his parent’s London home.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life, the House of Commons committee responsible for overseeing MPs’ behaviour, is to examine whether the expenses system should be changed.
Both MPs benefited from rules allowing them to subsidise the cost of second homes, allowing MPs to have a property in their constituency and one in London, to use when the Commons is sitting.
But Mr McNulty represents a London constituency, and admitted claiming a parliamentary allowance for his second home in Harrow only nine miles from his main home in Hammersmith, in west London.
News of the arrangement drew an angry response from the Tories and Alan Duncan, the Shadow Commons Leader, said it was “not clear” that Mr McNulty had operated within the rules. He suggested the second home allowance should be scrapped and MPs’ salaries boosted instead.
Mr Duncan said: “I think that one day - you can’t do it now because it would look like an increase in MPs’ salaries - we are going to have to get rid of this allowance and probably roll it into salary, and say people can look after their own housing accommodation and not have a special allowance for it.”
The current Committee on Standards in Public Life is understood to be considering a wide-ranging inquiry into MPs’ allowances. Last month it decided against a probe in this parliamentary session, after holding talks with Commons Leader Harriet Harman about proposed reforms. However, it did not rule out holding a review in the next session, which begins in the autumn.
Mr McNulty lived with his parents in the Harrow house, which he owns, before his 2002 marriage to second wife Christine. After moving into her home in Hammersmith, west London, he claimed the second home allowance on the Harrow property while his parents continued to live there.
In January this year he stopped claiming the allowance as interest rates had fallen so far that he found he was able to meet his mortgage commitments from his MP’s salary.
The Additional Costs Allowance (ACA), worth up to £24,000 a year, is paid to MPs from outside inner London to cover the cost of staying overnight away from their main home for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties. Most MPs use the money to pay for a base in central London near to Westminster though some, including Mr McNulty, opt - entirely within the rules - to claim for the cost of running a constituency home.
