Roger Helmer MEP

Generally roasting things twice is not to be advised, although re-fried beans spring to mind.  Alan Duncan MP, our man in Rutland and Melton, was given a going-over in the early days of the Telegraph expenses revelations, over his gardening claims.  I recall that some practical joker cut out a neat Pound Sign in his lawn, and planted it with herbaceous blossoms.  It seems that the same joker, in an amusing but generous gesture, also pinned ten-pound notes to the trees.  I’ve been kind of hoping that the same joker might pin a few tenners on my trees, but no joy so far.
 
Now the Telegraph is having a second go, claiming that Alan bought his constituency home outright (seems that Alan is not short of a bob or two) and then, later, took out a mortgage so that he could claim the interest against his second home allowance.  Is that scandalous or what?
 
But before we rush to judgement, let’s pause and reflect.  Which of us, offered a perfectly legitimate allowance as part of our conditions of employment, would not arrange our affairs so as to take advantage of it?  This was not money dishonestly or fraudulently obtained.  It was entirely within the rules.  The rules are, by common consent, appalling, but an individual MP can scarcely be held personally responsible for bad rules, especially if he’s been in opposition for twelve years.
 
The worst feature of the rules (in my view) is that fact that expenses can be charged in respect of a constituency home.  The intention, surely, is to reimburse Members of Parliament for the costs of accommodation incurred by staying in London overnight, in order to perform their parliamentary duties (and they are equally entitled to that reimbursement if they are independently wealthy, or poor as church mice).  I should have thought that the very first reform was to link the expenses solely to accommodation close to the House of Commons.  But Alan did indeed work in the House of Commons.  He did indeed incur expenses in staying in London, away from home, to perform those duties on behalf of his constituents.  And he was entitled to appropriate compensation.  Looked at this way, he was not a greedy MP exploiting the system, but (dare I say it?) the victim of bizarre rules which forced him into complex and arcane arrangements to enable him to claim what he was entitled to in the first place.
 
I am not an enthusiast for the European Union or its institutions.  But I believe that in one respect we have a better system in the European parliament, where we have a flat-rate daily allowance, which broadly covers the costs of a decent hotel room and an evening meal.  The system is simple, transparent, cheap to administer (how much does all that correspondence with the Commons Fees Office cost us in admin?), and entirely neutral with regard to the member’s personal arrangements.  MEPs can stay in an hotel, or in a small or large rented apartment, or they can buy any property they want to buy, with or without a mortgage, and they get the same allowance regardless.  It is right they get the same money, because it compensates them for fulfilling the same obligation — to be in Brussels or Strasbourg to do their work.  If they don’t attend, they don’t get the money.
 
This idea has been rejected by prominent MPs in Westminster because, they say, it represents “a payment for just coming to work”, and would be “unacceptable to the public”.  But it’s not a payment for coming to work.  It’s a reimbursement of the costs inevitably and properly incurred in staying in a remote capital city in order to perform their duties.  It’s a helluva a lot better than the scheme we have at the moment.  We should look at it again.

STOP PRESS:  Since writing this piece, I have been advised that in any case the Telegraph has the story wrong.  They were, apparently, mistaken in their assertion that the constituency home was first purchased outright, and the mortgage taken out later (with the implied objective of accessing expenses). I am advised that Alan Duncan had the mortgage all the time.  Yet another reminder not to believe all that you read in the papers — especially in stories about MPs’ expenses.