Parliament is notoriously strapped for cash, so why are thousands of pounds being spent on unreturned IT equipment? Mr S has done some digging and Commons bosses have now written off a decent sum on outstanding kit loaned to MPs who either stood down or lost their seat at the 2019 general election. Items which cost the taxpayer more than £5,400 have been written off with iPads, laptops, monitors and a desktop among the equipment which Parliament has failed to retrieve from former members.
And that’s not all, for Freedom of Information requests seen by Steerpike show which MPs have grabbed which kit. For instance, Roger Godsiff – the former Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green – is still in possession of two monitors, two laptops, one printer and a tablet: equipment on which the taxpayer spent more than £2,800 and which is estimated to still be worth some £1,200. Tom Watson, the previous deputy leader of the Labour party, also took two iPads and a desktop, which cost the taxpayer more than £1,900, although Parliament said that one of these items has been ‘located for retrieval or reallocation if appropriate.’
Sir Patrick McLoughlin, the former Tory Cabinet minister, is listed as owing two monitors at £166-a-pop, which have been ‘located for retrieval or reallocation,’ according to Commons records. Not all ex-MPs are so transparent in revealing what they owe however: the FOI reply found that had one item had been retracted because publication of the data ‘would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health of an individual.’ Elliot Keck, investigations campaigns manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) said:
House authorities should stay on the case of light-fingered legislators and ensure they pay for any tech from Parliament on their way out.
The pressure group reported analysis last month which found that the average MP now costs the taxpayer £203,880 a year, up by 29.2 per cent from the previous year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Godsiff was named Parliament’s ‘most expensive MP’ in his final year in Parliament, having cost the taxpayer £265,000 in 2019/20, according to the TPA.
The Commons claims that ‘normal arrangements’ for collecting IT equipment have been ‘severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and by the restrictions on access’ to the parliamentary estate, meaning that ‘we were not able to carry out collections for equipment for large parts of 2020 and 2021.’
Mr S looks forward to them making up for lost time shortly.
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