Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No, MPs have not ‘given themselves’ £10,000 to work from home

In times of crisis, we all need someone to direct our anger at. There are some new candidates during this coronavirus epidemic: people who sit down in parks, people who panic bought toilet roll, and police officers threatening to check shopping baskets. But the old staples remain, and top of that list are the selfish, venal MPs who have just handed themselves £10,000 to work from home.

This sort of story proves the point of all those who believe that MPs are out of touch and in it for themselves. It does such a good job of proving that point that it’s too good a story to check. Which is just as well, because anyone bothering to check what’s actually going on will find the facts rather less convenient.

Here is what has really happened. On 19 March, Ipsa, the independent body which regulates MPs’ pay and expenses sent out a bulletin about its response to the coronavirus outbreak. This explained that: 

‘We have agreed a series of immediate measures that we hope will provide you with the resources and flexibility to concentrate on your parliamentary duties and support your staff at this time.’

The biggest change was that the existing office costs budget that MPs can claim expenses on will increase by £10,000 ‘to cover any additional costs you may incur to set up working remotely as a result of coronavirus’. The existing office costs budget (found here, along with all the budgets for MPs’ spending) is up to £28,800 for London MPs, and £25,910 for all the rest. This covers renting a constituency office, and filling it with desks, computers, printers and so on, as well as equipment for the Westminster office (staffed by different people) and constituency surgeries. MPs can already claim for the cost of a home office for them and their staff if that’s where they routinely work from, but not the normal cost of living in that home.

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Isabel Hardman
Written by
Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.

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