The Commons closes ranks

Vulture

I don't think, David, that you - along with most MPs - have grasped the full extent of public outrage at the exposed corruption of the entire political class from Bruin downwards.(Or upwards!). The fact is that roughly half of all MPs were on the fiddle - some criminally so, although no prosecutions have yet resulted ( Funny, that..).
I don't care if Legg represents rough justice, or even injustice - MPs need to feel the hot blast of public wrath. The transgressors have behaved like pigs, and its high time they were sent to the abbatoir.

RobertD

No they clearly don't get it. The Benefit Office accepted my story and paid me too much doesn't wash in court. The accounts department didn't notice the address on the invoice was not a business address doesn't work in most companies. That the rules were not properly enforced at the time does not excuse the fact that they were broken. The normal role of an auditor is to identify were the correct procedure was not applied and to advise management to put it right.

The management in this case is the poeple, and we demand that the situation be corrected. NOW.

Victor Southern

I would hope that the self-serving and demonstrably morally corrupt Members Estimates Committee does not speak for many MPs.

The public has absolutely zero tolerance over this matter. Those MPs who defy the findings should not delay. They should stand down now. If there are enough of them that would precipitate the General Election which we need.

The names of refuseniks must be made known to us.

john miller

It sounds a reasonable argument until you see the way Ministers of the Crown treat little people.

Just because your VAT returns or your income tax returns have been accepted by HMRC does NOT mean that they cannot be investigated at a later date. There is no sense that HMRC "approves" your tax return by accepting it, the law just states that if they don't query it within a certain time, that right lapses.

I do not for one moment that the Fees Office had the right to approve MPs expense claims with sufficient authority as to prevent their subsequent investigation.

Of course, MPs wanted a very modern investigation, the type that leaves the carpet nudging the ceiling.

I'm so glad they didn't get it. If they do go to court then we should bring private prosecutions against them.

David Bouvier

No they don't get it. If as reported on Today, Legg is suggesting that costs in excess of certain thresholds need to be explained in terms of being "wholly and exclusively necessary" for the job then he is taking a sensible tough approach to his remit.

What the MPs squirm and try to pretend otherwise.

I know from business life how some people get too used to living high on the hog on expenses and loose sight of what is acceptable. And they can get disciplined or fired as a result.

Sean Haffey

Do the rebels get it?

We'll see after the election. They may find it cheaper to pay back a bit more than to join the ranks of the unemployed. I think most MPs have substantially underestimated public anger about expenses.

Carroll Barry-Walsh

MPs are missing the point: it's not good enough for them to say that their expenses were signed off by the Fees Office. When they claimed the money they stated that the monies claimed were necessarily and exclusively incurred for their Parliamentary duties. In a lot of cases those statements were not true, indeed, were little more than self-serving twaddle We're entirely justified in saying that - above a certain reasonable limit - excess monies claimed should be repaid. For instance, £1000 for gardening is more than generous since I cannot see any basis whatever for the public having to pay anything at all for an MP's garden.

MPs should realise that even what Legg is permitting them is way more than would ever be permitted to an ordinary taxpayer by the Inland Revenue and count themselves lucky. But if they want to behave like a lot of greedy so-and-so's moaning about how hard done by they are by comparison with, ooh, let's see, soldiers set off to fight with inadequate equipment or families living on estates terrorised by thugs or those of their constituents no longer paying a 10% initial tax rate, then let them and we will wait. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

Stephen Birch

Bleating now simply means that they did not set the parameters of the inquiry in a way that they would now find acceptable, so incompetent and crooked.

RMH

They are benefit cheats and should be subject to the same checks and tests as the "oiks" they legislate over.

Mark

Still awaiting prosecutions for blatant fraud. But then our masters are not subject to the same laws we are, Baroness Scotland, Hariet Harman, Baroness Udin and over half the members of parliment proove this. If the commons wants to restore public trust then it needs to make sure the political class is subject to the same laws and punishment as the rest of the country.

Chris

Much as I would like to see MPs pay back more money - particularly in cases like Jackie Smith and her residency delegation etc, I do believe that retrospectively forcing people to pay back money is wrong.

There is more scope to query costs where they are backed up with receipts, so as to prove their worth. Millibands New Rose Garden wall can hardly be called maintenance for example.

All this goes to show that the fees office and Michael Martin were completely not up to the job. Bringing a trade union grab all you can get even if it bankrupts the employer attitude is clearly something that does not work

chris as usual

MPs may have some legal case to avoid repayment, but that is not the point.

This is a moral issue - it's no good, as Mandelson and Mann did this morning, saying that the rules were poor and vague, but rules they were.

These people should behave like everyone else is asked to do according to the rules as applied by the Inland Revenue, etc.

In other words, could we have got away with all this, in our civil jobs, is the yardstick.

If fact, the MPs are in a worse position from the moral point of view. If we receive benefits, then they are treated as income paid by our employer and we have to pay tax and NI, but can keep the money left. But MPs should repay it all, since their employer is the taxpayer.

Jock

The cry of “Foul” by politicians based on a breach of natural justice is ill-judged and insensitive given the palpable sense of public outrage which surrounds this topic. This has been a shameful episode and MPs who are happy to tell the public about realpolitik should see that it applies here and take their medicine

The background is an expenses arrangement and rules created by the politicians themselves. The rules were designed to enable manipulation and abuse, or were at the very least facilitated such behaviour. These rules and the way they were applied were not known to, let alone approved by, the people the politicians are there to serve and whose money pays their salaries and expenses.

The idea that natural justice should mean that they are should not be accountable for any abuse or misuse so long it was within the ludicrously lax rules they created for themselves is risible. A bit like saying a confidence trickster should not be accountable for any of his actions up to the point his victims became aware of the true facts.

Leaders within the political parties, “shocked” at the revelations, have much to answer for. Even those who did not tell or imply to MPs that expenses were there to be exploited, as a proxy for salary in the face of government constraints on MPs’ pay, went along with it.

For those MPs who refuse to do so pay back monies and stand again, we should vote them out. For those who are standing down, we should punish the party by not voting for their candidate.

Nicj Leaton

I hope Blair is on the list. He's claims were illegally shredded.

As such a demand to repay all of it or provide expenses strikes me as fair.

Nick

john miller

In response to my fellow commenters who say that it is a moral issue or retrospective, I would respectfully point out that it is neither.

The law, as other commenters have stated, is quite clear on this. Expenses have to be wholly and exclusively in respect of their job as MPs. (Note that if YOU are an employee, the HMRC test is much stricter, as your expenses have to be wholly, exclusively and necessarily in respect of your job.)

Those were the rules and the fact they have been found to have been broken by a later investigation is beside the point. Again, if you have paid too little tax, HMRC has 6 years to find you out. This enquiry goes back half that time (another little perk for big people - you try telling the taxman that you threw away your receipts after 3 years and see how far that gets you. HMRC will just make them up for you and you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent).

No, I feel that even though they have been treated far more leniently than you or I would be, MPs are crying "foul" merely because after having been found out, someone is actually taking action, a state of affairs unkown to the present incumbents of the House.

Norman Dee

Am I missing something here ?, although mentioned in passing several times nobody seems to be questioning the "Fees Office" involvement in this. Who are these people who seem to have power to question somethings eg Tom Dalyells bookcases, but not others. Are they not as complicit in this as the MPs ?

Scary Biscuits

Ah, the false defence yet again! Every single MP who has claimed expenses has signed a document stating that they are 'wholly, exclusively and necessarily' for the discharge of their duties. There were no rules other than this. The Commons Office had now power to enforce them other than to question the most excessive (which we now know to be a fairly tough competition). Any MP who has claimed in defiance of his signed statement has broken the rules and any who claims otherwise is simply lying to defend his selfish interest.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Oh dear, oh dear. Does anybody really expect the jails to be filled with expense fiddlers, and the coffers to be heavy with fines and returned public funds? No, they will all be claiming that it's only like a congestion charge, after all dear.

Moraymint

Here's how it works out here in the real world.

Today, I received a Notice of Warning of Legal Proceedings from HMRC for non-payment of a corporation tax bill on my small business. My business cannot afford to pay the full amount owing: our market has dried up virtually overnight, we're absolutely strapped for cash and our bank is preparing to withdraw its support.

I made an arrangement with the Business Payment Support Line to part-pay the amount owing. I am having to pay the balance outstanding out of my rapidly deteriorating personal savings.

Does HMRC care or speak to the Business Payment Support Line? Obviously not. Does HMRC want my money right now? Absolutely right it does; after all, the country is heading for insolvency like my own business and, guess what? Gordon Brown's cash needs trump those of my business and my family any day.

The message to me is clear. Pay every penny of what is due to the state now, regardless of your ability to pay, or we'll see you in court.

How come it doesn't work like this for the politicos?

Chuck Unsworth

@ Moraymint

The message is: Pay every penny you owe to HMRC - then get the hell out of the country, move your business overseas, and devil take the hindmost.

DangerDave

@Moraymint

I have great sympathy for your situation.

If it is of any reassurance, there are thousands and thousands for businesses that are in the same situation as you and this avalanche of monies that are not going to be received by HMRC will cause further pressure on the nations limited finances.

next stop downgrading of the UK PLC debt, default and the inevitable IMF bailout.

I wonder if this article has been made deliberately controversial to stir up the coffee housers or David Blackburn really has spent too long in the westminster bubble and clearly doesn't understand the depth of the public's rage on this.

i reckon we could probably run the country with about 15 competent private sector people in parliament. think of the waste that we would save culling 630 useless MPs

chris as usual

A further point.

Their 'second homes' were to provide them with accommodation when they were in London for their Parliamentary duties (or apparently elsewhere, if they wanted).

Some have paid back sums of money which is the capital gains tax they have avoided when the sold at a profit (Like Hazel Blears did). But since these expenses were for accommodation, not for profit, should they not be paying back the whole of the gains that they made, not just the gains tax?

They should have come out of that in just the same way as if they had rented the accommodation, and claimed expenses on the rental cost only. As for the furniture, etc, what happens to that when they sell up and go home? Do they give it back?

Verity

John Miller, I also suggested private prosecutions on another thread. These people need their feet held to the fire until they scream, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll pay everything back! Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaase!!"

Verity

A W Kaye -- Ah ... the Antiguan Defence! Has Mrs MaWhinny (aka "Baroness" Scotland) resigned yet?

Anne Wotana Kaye

Hi Verity,
She is still around, although has now sunk to her natural level. She is appearing in cartoon form in Private Eye. Maybe if she si finally fired, she is going to compete with the Brazilian Bombshell and become a cleaner!

anne allan

'The rules were poor and vague'......!
Parliament is stuffed with lawyers, college lecturers and other assorted smart arses, and not one of them spotted that the 'rules were poor and vague'.
Oh, they spotted it all right; they just hoped the voter wouldn't.

Tiberius

Moraymint: I too sympathize with you. I am FD of a family business, and 12 months ago I doubted we would still be here now because we import so many of our products.

But thank goodness we still (so far, touch wood) are here, and HMRC's business support unit has allowed us to pay VAT in instalments, and I've taken instalments with the PAYE. We have CT to pay in a month (George - I welcome your mooted CT rate cut!), and may apply for instalments on that.

I heard a guy on a R2 phone in last week say that the public sector doesn't know it's borne. It doesn't. What it should realize is that the private sector doesn't know what its income will be 12 months ahead. What a luxury! And we have threats from these people that they're going to go on strike!

Stuff 'em and sack 'em. And the MP's expenses system is shameful.