Downing Street Says » MP’s Pay

Asked if the Government was proposing to cap the amount of mortgage interest MPs could claim, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that that would be something that would be looked at by the Advisory Panel on Members Allowances, which had been strengthened by the appointment of two independent members. The main issue was that the Government did not necessarily accept that a sensible approach to MPs’ expenses was to allow large amounts of money to be reimbursed for mortgages and nothing to be reimbursed for other legitimate living expenses. We wanted to find a way of striking a better balance between what MPs were entitled to in order to meet their mortgage costs, and what the other costs were associated with running a second home, which was what MPs need to do in order to fulfil their jobs.

Asked repeatedly if it would be better to give new MPs an allowance of £2,400 to furnish their homes in the first year and not give them anything further for that Parliament, the PMS said that there needed to be a balance struck between what MPs could claim for mortgage payments and what MPs could claim for the other costs associated with running a second home. The key was that there should be transparency and proper audit arrangements in place. That was why the Government had made its proposals today; the Advisory Panel of Members Allowances would look at this in more detail and there would be opportunities for everyone to express their views. The general principal was that MPs had a legitimate need for a second home and there were costs associated with running a second home; any claims associated with running a home, be they mortgage costs or others, should be reasonable. We needed to have a high degree of transparency around any claims that MPs made, associated with the cost of running their homes, and that system should be properly audited. There had already been proposals to strengthen internal systems, and the whole of the allowances system would be audited by the National Audit Office. We were putting stronger safeguards in place in order to ensure that taxpayers’ money was used for the purposes it was meant to be used for.

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» Wednesday, July 16, 2008

MP’s Pay

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