Should MPs be able to employ their relatives?

... ..

YES.
On the same INDEPENDENTLY agreed pay & conditions they would give a non family member.

Cardinal Richelieu's mole

A perfectly reasonable proposal, if myopically conceived.

Yet the troughers have shown they can't be trusted - so a complete ban is the only way.

(Myopic as favouring "couples" is nastily discriminatory and it misses the entire point - it is not who is employed, but how.)

logdon

Only if they're not their grandchildrens father.

The Oncoming Storm

I say they should as long as the pay isn't excessive. MP's councillors, MSP's etc. often receive information in confidence from constituents and they need to have staff how they can trust to respect that confidence. If you can't trust family members then who can you trust?!

This of course is all part of the fallout from Derek Conway's flagrant abuse of the system. If the work is being genuinely done then I've no problem with it being done by a relative.

Steigs

I don't really care who the MPs employ as long all appointments are publicly available and all T&Cs are set centrally; surely all diary secretaries are comparable?

oldtimer

The ability to retain one family member seems a reasonable solution and a route to a family friendly solution, given the hours MPs are expected to work. The abolition of the various allowances needs also to be accompanied by an increase in MPs` salaries.

JohnW

"But there is no doubt that there are a lot of relatives, and spouses especially, who are working extremely hard for their salary"

I beg to differ. There is a LOT of doubt, caused by the troughing in the 1st place. If we cant trust them to fill in expense claims honestly, honest employment has no chance.

David Ossitt

Let us get this absolutely clear; in a perfect world of honest truthful politicians, there would be no problem if some of our MP’s were to employ relatives, and then pay them out of the public purse.

But this is not a perfect world; many of our politicians are liars, lots of them are bent and a large number are crooks.

Over and above that; is the fact that by us allowing them to employ family we their employer are leading them into temptation.

Take the wankers wife as a prime example; she pays the wanker £40,000 a year to look after the kids and to play with himself and then tells everybody that a spare bedroom at her sisters is her main home.

Get it right; they are not under paid, for what amounts to a thirty two week year, of half day Mondays, full days Tuesday and Wednesday and finishing Thursday lunchtime £67,000 plus expenses is more than enough

Gareth

There is nothing wrong with employing relatives so long as they do the work they are paid.

My fear for the Kelly investigation is that it will seek to nanny responsibility away from MPs when all that is required is transparency, treating everyone like adults and letting voters have the final say.

If MPs can't be up front about the way they spend our money they don't deserve our vote. WE should demand this of our MPs rather than hope Kelly will do something similar.

Go further and require a demonstration of competency from our MPs - an annual block grant that they must manage through the year along with an itemised audit every year. Then they can find their balance of staff, office, travel costs and personal pay to suit their own needs.

simon too

MPs should be able to employ as many people as they want, family or not. On the other hand they should only receive an allowance for a secretary. They do not need any more staff to do their proper job. If they find that they do need more, they are losing themselves in displacement activity and generally suffering delusions of grandeur.

Horatius

We shouldn't over-react to the Conway and expenses scandal.As long as genuine services are provided at open market pay rates, there is much to commend husband and wife teams.

The Press and public are beginning to take their cynicism too far.

John Moss

If MPs were paid a "fee" to cover all their costs, salary, pension etc, then the Inland Revenue would be the ones deciding this, not MPs.

On principle, I agree with MPs being able to employ their family members, if they do the necessary work. Unfortunately, Conway's antics have made it difficult to justify.

More kudos to the November 2000 selection committee in Walthamstow who did not even rank him highly enough to interview!

Alan Douglas

I think I recall several cases of secretaries in London having affairs with the boss while the dutiful wife is in the constituency. The wife doing the sec's job (ha !) solves that problem.

I allowing one family member, and some process for checking the genuineness of the working relationship, is a good compromise.

Alan Douglas

Thomas R.K. Fry

Caesar said that his wife must be above suspicion and he therefore divorced her. Not because he knew her to have done anything wrong, but because in public life (he believed) there should not be even a whiff of a hint of a suspicion of corruption. The Caesar's wife argument would, of itself, suggest that no relatives should be employed. This would mean that parliament would, through a small injustice to those family members reasonably employed, regain its public reputation.
It should be noted for history's sake, that Caesar was himself venal, corrupt and murderous, but one should never let venal, corrupt murder stand in the way of a good classical allusion, or indeed theoretical principle.

Boudicca

An MP should be able to employ a relative providing that relative has applied to a job that is advertised properly and fairly, so that anyone else can apply if they wish. All the applicants should be selected for interview by a Civil Service appointment board and interviewed in accordance with Civil Service criteria. The MP should have NO involvement in the process. In the event the relative passes the selection procedure - which should be open for examination under the Discrimination Act to ensure that all candidates, regardless of race, gender, religion, disability and sexual orientation have had an equal opportunity - they can have the job.

Otherwise, an MP should only be allowed to employ a relative if he/she pays their wages himself out of his own income - not the public purse.

Nicj Leaton

NO.

Working hard is one thing. Being paid over the odds is another.

Nick

Liz Brown

Yes! A spouse will know the constituency and will know the way the MP likes to work. If salaries are set at an a greed level, there should be no problems

strapworld

Equal Opportunities MUST apply. All vacancies should be advertised and a proper interview with a senior member of the Civil Service present to ensure impartiality.

OR the jobs are done by the civil service!

In2minds

Gordon Brown employs his wife to speak at the Nulabour conference so what's the problem?

Richard

If MP's were seen to be on our side instead of against us then no one would be worried about what they earned or who they employed. The expenses row has given people a channel for their anger at being ignored and dictated to by the whole political class for many years.

Until we get politicians who are seen to be working for us rather than against us this row is going to rumble on and get worse. There has got to be some sort of clean sweep and I don't see it happening at the next election.

Oliver Cromwell

No.

Nepotism should be banned outright.

St Bruno

Why can't they wait till after the next election? Most, if not all of them will be kicked out of Parliament as not worthy to represent the true values of what used to be Great Britain.

2trueblue

What have MPs done to earn our trust so far that would assume this arrangement is reasonable?

Fergus Pickeing

Strapworld, you know and I know that many jobs 'advertised' are in fact stitched up beforehand, and this is true wherever you have arrangements such as the oneyou have described.

2trueblue

MPs have shownthat they want everything done under the radar so NO.

nic

I can't see this happening. An odd point I know, but surely it would be illegal to discriminate against spouses? Couldn't any who lost their job out of this (and who could prove they have put the work in over the years) sue on grounds of unfair dismissal?

Occasional Ostrich

Very nice. And fair enough, too, within limits.

Now, is there any chance that, if parents "push" for those idiotic areas of CRB checking that inhibit (or prevent altogether) the normal social functions of babysitting and exchange students to be consigned to the trashcan, they can succeed against this totalitarian government?

Or is it only MPs who can "push" with any chance of success?

nic

Boudicca: "The MP should have NO involvement in the [selection] process [of all their staff]"

That's just daft. An MP isn't a civil servant, they're elected with an agenda. They need to employ people who are committed to helping them move that agenda forward, so there has to be some discretion for the MP. For example, I would consider myself reasonably well qualified for a position as a Parliamentary researcher in, say, David Cameron's office. But as I'm a card-carrying Labour Party member, he probably wouldn't be too happy about the appointment.

Obviously, political commitment applies to Parliament in a way it doesn't (and shouldn't) in the civil service (where I would expect to be considered for a job no matter what the administration).

BrianSJ

Surely they would want to be models of best practice in employment legislation. After all, they passed it. So why aren't they clamouring to adopt the proposals by Boudicca and others? The 'we are above the law' is more infuriating than the troughing.

mitch

NO! they have proved they cannot be trusted so treat em like kids for a few years, get the message across.

janet

Absolutely not. MPs cannot behave as small businessmen when their income is obtained from the taxpayer. Jacqui Smith for example pays her husband £40,000 a year as her constituency secretary. I am sure he does some work but I do not consider anyone undertaking such a job deserves this income which is determined by the MP concerned.

It is hilarious how far removed from reality many MPs are. In the real world many of us support our partners without recompense. Too many MPs have abused the system of family employment and therefore the privilege should be removed. All necessary Staff should be employed by the Commons and normal rules of employment should exist.

davidke

No it's just wrong. All publicly funded jobs must be openly advertised and competed for, with appointments made by an independent selection committee of HOC officials. Of course anyone can employ his own wife if he pays her salary out of his own salary. Up to him.

daniel maris

"But there is no doubt that there are a lot of relatives, and spouses especially, who are working extremely hard for their salary."

No - there is a lot of doubt on that score. What they often do is employ the wife and then employ someone else at a much lower wage or employ people on work experience to do the work such as it is. But again, a lot of the correspondence is very standard. They can copy and paste all the policy stuff from their party websites. And in these days of electronic communication an MP can keep their own diary.

I would prefer to see there being no secretarial allowance. Secretaries should be provided from a pool provided by the House of Commons. MPs would be able to interview a number and make their choice.

General Zod

There will always be the suspicion that relatives on the payroll are just a way of drawing extra taxpayer cash, so perhaps such relatives should submit timesheets. They could also be subject to limited random audits, in the same way that HMRC can compel normal taxpayers to be audited.

RMH

No, and they should just use pool secretaries and admin staff if needed.

Chuck Unsworth

It's not a question of 'should they' is it? The question actually is 'why should they?'.

Dorothy Wilson

Surely the salary scale and the terms of appointment for MPs' admin and support staff should be set centrally. There is no way someone like Jacqui Smith should be allowed to employ her husband as a constituency secretary for £40,000 a year when the going rate for a job of that kind in Redditch is probably in the £20-25k range. That is particularly so when, in reality, he is probably no more than a house husband.

A J Scott

Boudicca: spot on, Queen!
Open (they don't like that word, do they?) recruitment supervised by the Civil Service Commission - and advertised in other papers as well as the Grauniad.

Verity

Perhaps a fair alternative would be that all secretarial jobs should have to be advertised. The MP would be free to choose his wife or a family member, but would have to justify the appointment against other applicants.

Pete Wass

Of course they should. If their constituents don't like it then they can vote for someone else, if othe people don't like it then tough.