Reform of our disgraced Parliament will probably have to be led outside Westminster, given the current standing of MPs
THE extraordinary scandal over MPs’ expenses ignited by the Daily Telegraph reveals a dangerous set of attitudes in the Westminster elite. As more dodgy dealings by leading parliamentary figures have been exposed, the systematic nature of their questionable behaviour coupled with the standard response that all this was within the rules triggered massive public hostility.
This is a defining moment for our parliamentary democracy. A political class accused of greed and myopia carries many dangers. The root causes of something that was bound to bring politics into disrepute go beyond the inadequacy of the rules. The MPs’ behaviour may have been legal, but it is morally indefensible.
However, as the party leaderships scrambled to patch up the gaping holes in the credibility of the political class, the fundamental issue was largely unaddressed. Why were so many snouts in the political trough? What is it about the parliamentary culture that made a sty of Westminster and swept other issues off the front pages once this was exposed? Why did MPs so badly mishandle their own remuneration?
The nature of the revelations in the Telegraph do not make for easy reading. Some of the expense claims may be legitimate. Some of it is relatively small beer, but the property deals in which some Labour MPs seems to have indulged and the lifestyle spending of some Tory Party luminaries, including chandeliers and bills for swimming pools, are not.
While some of the allegations may be misplaced, they would not be quite so damaging if they had not confirmed what many people already think about Westminster. It is touch with the reality of the lives of most people in this country. And it has more in common with the get-rich-quick mentality that brought the City to the current economic crisis than the practice of effective governance.
MPs may be underpaid – by as much 15 per cent, if the Senior Salaries Review Body is to be believed. But the Westminster consensus held that a pay rise of that order would be politically damaging. It chose to hold down MPs’ wages, fearing a public backlash, but allowed generous expenses that would make up the difference. Expenses became not legitimate payments for doing the job, but a hidden subsidy for underpaid salaries.
Gordon Brown could have tackled this problem head on, but made a serious error of judgement in choosing to maintain underpayment as a plank in his economic strategy. By holding MPs’ pay rises below inflation, he set a benchmark for holding down public sector pay.
But public sector workers do not have the power to use expenses to subsidise their wages. The privilege of having control over pay and conditions is limited to parliamentarians. And this privilege was manipulated for political and financial gain. Clearly, tighter controls are needed on parliamentary expenses. But rules can be broken, while the example of John Major’s Government when sleaze dismayed voters and helped to consign the Tories to more than a decade in opposition seems to have been forgotten.
The dominant culture has been a nod and a wink to fiddling expenses, exploiting loopholes and using the tricks of the trade for personal advantage. As more and more dodgy claims came to light, the initial line, before the apologies and repayments started, was that no rules had been broken. Of course not. The politicians made the rules. But compliance with rules is not the same as acting according to conscience. We cannot avoid the necessity for public debate about what politicians do and how – and how much – they should be paid. We need a new social contract between politicians and those who employ them – the voters. This has to become an open and explicit initiative. To do anything less is to threaten the future of parliamentary democracy. Almost certainly, such an initiative will have to be driven by forces outside Westminster. The political class has destroyed its own credibility.
