MP's, Expenses and their energy bills- guess whose paying?

[HeeHiles]

Here

So not only do we have to pay for their 2nd homes we now pay their energy bills too?

Why do they need a 2nd home? can't they have a room to rent? WTF???

A council house would still come with bills attached. A kilowatt of energy costs the same whether it's being used to heat a Notting Hill pad or a council flat.

I would rather pay them an increased flat rate salary but disallow them from holding any other paid job / directorship while an MP.

I agree they should be paid an increased flat rate however expenses should be limited, like it is in the private sector. No chauffers, limos etc. Not sure why they shouldn't be allowed to have second jobs, a lot of people have multiple income streams. As long as they're doing their job properly, I don't see the problem.

I agree all Members should be in receipt of expenses.
All expenses should have a maximum allowable claim.
Other than that, I'm with Billy stop taking the piss and spinning nasty insidious stories about those on benefits.

I think we need the same system that they have in Denmark, where they provide basic accommodation in the capital for MPs - a very simple 1-bedroom flat, no more than that, and it's paid for so everyone knows what it costs. The UK system is far too open to abuse.

PointyFangs the problem with that is again, it will discriminate against some MPs. Particularly women. What are children supposed to do if their parent is just given a one bedroomed flat?

If MPs are in London most of the week in term time it would make sense for their children to go to school there so they can see more of their parents. If MPs have small children obviously they will need to be with them fairly frequently.

If you come up with rules like that it's going to mean that doing the job is put out of reach of whole swathes of women who aren't prepared to go days at a time without seeing their own children.

Yes the system does need overhauling (again) to stop things like bills for heating an entire estate. But if we're going to have a representative parliament which includes people without independent wealth, parents of young children and women we're going to have to make sure that their needs are properly supported.

But we do need to ensure enough financial support is available to allow people of all backgrounds to be MPs. I don't want us to get into a situation where only the wealthy can afford to be MPs. If that means they get financial support to run a second home so be it

Unfortunately, in reality in this country we are attracting a high number of rather dismal quality MPs who are not only rather low achieving and who would struggle to hold down a position of authority outside politics or even pass the interview stage, but who organise their lives so that they go straight out of an arts degree into working as a political aide to local politics to MP candidate.

Cutting down on expenses might just discourage this type and encourage people with real jobs and real life experience to go into politics.

Its not just MPs who get over-inflated contracts. I was recently contacted by council contract workers who wanted a serviced let and had £420 a week to spend on accommodation.

SeaSickSal PointyFangs the problem with that is again, it will discriminate against some MPs. Particularly women. What are children supposed to do if their parent is just given a one bedroomed flat

Presumably they will just have to cope in the same way people in the private sector have to when working away from home, often for long periods of time?

Presumably they will just have to cope in the same way people in the private sector have to when working away from home, often for long periods of time?

what sort if scenario are you thinking of here @zilvern?
I genuinely would be interested to know how this would work for people working in private and public sectors?

One would hope that for an MP who is a single parent, provision could be made in terms of accommodation for children. In other cases it would be a matter of the parent who is the MP staying away from home - as Zilvernblue has pointed out, many people who work 'normal' jobs do this and don't get big expense allowances for it.

I am not against allowing MPs to run a second home, I just feel that a budget ceiling should be set for it because too many MPs are taking the piss at the moment. As for the current system allowing talented people to be MPs as opposed to only the wealthy - that point really does not merit more than a hollow laugh.

The problem with this is if you look at the kind of people who do jobs where they work away from home in the private sector you get a very narrow selection of people. They are mainly men of certain ages.

This doesn't really matter in the private sector. But when you're looking at people who run the country do you really want to see women, those with children and those with less money marginalized and pushed out?

It would take us back to the days when parliament was mainly male apart from a few rich Grande Dames.

Darkesteyes

Seasick i would love to run for council As im sure many people would. But a lot of ppl who would love to do this who are on JSA or low wages/zero hour contracts dont have the £500 that you have to lay out initially .................soooooo what was that again?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's no cost to run for council. You have to put up a deposit when you run for MP, but not for council.

There's no need for MPs to have two large , expensive to maintain family homes in both London and their constituency. The children only need to live in one of the houses, and the MP can pay for that from their salary. The other only needs to be a basic flat (in either the constituency or in London) because it only needs to accommodate the MP.

The problem with MPs having paid directorships is that very often they are voting on issues which will affect the companies employing them in their other jobs. I know that they have to register their interests, but I'm not convinced that's enough to avoid influencing votes on e.g. tighter banking regulation.

Inertia

The problem with MPs having paid directorships is that very often they are voting on issues which will affect the companies employing them in their other jobs. I know that they have to register their interests, but I'm not convinced that's enough to avoid influencing votes on e.g. tighter banking regulation.

The same would surely apply to any issue. Nick Clegg, for example, worked for the EU Commission. His wife also worked for the EU. Both of them will have received pensions as part of their packages, so they have a financial interest in seeing the EU prosper.

What about MPs with union connections, or who are bankrolled by unions? What about Ed Balls who is a Labour and Co-Operative MP? Should he be excluded from votes on bailouts for the Co-Op bank because of his position?

I get that MP's who have to attend Parliament need to stay overnight in London, so either stay in a hotel or how they can't provide rooms in the Houses of Parliament? That building is huge! Rooms could be furnished so they can have subsidised meal in their restuarant, a subsidised drink from their bar then upstairs to bed! We are paying for these luxury homes which are only used a few times, empty for months over the summer, they then sell it and keep the profit instead of putting it back into the public purse.

Also the poster who pointed out that Denmark provide a basic one bed and was then asked where the children would stay, for one they don't bring their children with them anyway, but I and my two dd's have been living in a one bed flat, day in, day out for 8 years and I know families far more overcrowded than that!

All in this together? Fuck the fuck off to the far side of fuck and then fuck off some more, wise words from Mr Tucker

I don't have a problem with expenses. I travel a lot for work, and I expect to be reimbursed for money I wouldn't otherwise have spent. My company are pretty generous about this, within clearly defined and communicated rules.

There is, however, such a thing as taking the piss. When the winter fuel allowance is what, £300? Claiming £5000 to heat your estate is taking the piss. To use another example, £400 a month food allowance is more than I spend to feed three adults at Waitrose - so is this a fair level to set the expense bar at, given that it's meant to be feeding only the MP, not the MP's whole family (whether that family primarily resides in London or at their constituency home)?

As always, the expenses system needs a thorough going-over and some (more) clear and sensible rules set about such things as flipping, upper limits, how often you can claim for a new flatscreen TV, commutable distances that mean you don't qualify for a second-home allowance, so on and so forth. Given the unique position of MPs in our society, the rules should also be publicly available.

65 K is more than reasonable for what appears to be only a part time job now given how long the summer and other breaks are and how many MPs manage to continue their lucrative outside interests once elected.

The argument that poor pay will produce a poor calibre of MPs is frankly insulting given that the samre argument could be applied to people in responsible, difficult jobs whose pay is dismal. Does anyone seriously feel we have a high calibre of MP at present?

With the proposed 11% pay rise,exceptionally generous pensions, expenses scandals, many continuing to employ their family members at often surprisingly generous pay rates............. I could go on.

We need fewer greedy, self serving, dishonest MPs

What MPs can claim to heat their second home should be limited, say to the average heating cost for a 2 or 3-bed semi in the UK. There is absolutely no justification for claiming £6000 to heat a country estate. I live in the adjacent constituency to this particular MP and have yet to meet anyone who has a good word to say about him, so his expenses can hardly be justified on the basis of value for money for constituents and tax payers.

flatpackhamsterMon 04-Nov-13 13:14:05

Darkesteyes

Seasick i would love to run for council As im sure many people would. But a lot of ppl who would love to do this who are on JSA or low wages/zero hour contracts dont have the £500 that you have to lay out initially .................soooooo what was that again?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's no cost to run for council. You have to put up a deposit when you run for MP, but not for council.

And is this deposit low enough for someone on JSA or minimum wage to put themselves up? If its unaffordable for this group of ppl then its not true that everyone can afford to become an MP which makes the argument that expenses being paid so that everyone can afford to run for Parliament a pretty crap one.

I agree with posters saying that MP's should be able to claim some expenses, just as you would in any job requiring you to work away from home, however there needs to be a sharp tightening up of the rules and some realistic limits set.

As an example my DH works in the mechanical engineering trade, he only qualifies as 'working away from home' if the site is over 50 miles from home, otherwise it is deemed commutable. His train ticket (basic, no first class tickets etc) is paid for on providing a reciept, if he uses his own car he is allowed to claim 40p per mile.
If he has to lodge away from home, he is given a £35 a night allowance, and is expecting to rent a room in a guest hour or B&B.

If this is good enough for someone on a very average wage, then why the hell is this not good enough for an MP, when you consider the above average wage they receive? I do not see the need for a second home at all, rent a room, or be provided a state owned small flat that the MP has no financial stake in, that way bills such as heating and electricity do not need to be claimed and therefore cannot be abused.

Darkesteyes

And is this deposit low enough for someone on JSA or minimum wage to put themselves up?

What's that got to do with anything? You stated someone running for council had to put a deposit up. I told you they don't. It's only running for MP.

If its unaffordable for this group of ppl then its not true that everyone can afford to become an MP which makes the argument that expenses being paid so that everyone can afford to run for Parliament a pretty crap one.

It's common for someone standing for MP to be sponsored by their party if they can't afford it. So no, you can't just rock up as the 'Not On The Ballot Paper Party' and make a nuisance of yourself.

This does not say that MPs do not pay their energy bills, they do in their primary home. They just get some help with the costs which they incur in a second home which are only necessary due to the nature of the job.

But why a home? An expensive one at that - what is wrong with a room in a shared house? A basic hotel room? Why a luxury home in an expensive area of London, which we pay for, maintain and now heat and then they get to pocket the profit? There are loads of hotels in the Westminster area they could stay overnight in and they all have fantastic facilities and Wi-Fi.

All MPs with constituencies outside the North and South circular should be allocated a 1 bedroom flat in a designated high security building near Westminster that has full concierge service and comfortable enough for spouses to stay often and a few guest flats for if kids want to come in the holidays.
Those flats will be the "2nd home" and paid for by the taxpayer.

The house in their constituency is their problem

all of their expenses should come under standard HMRC schedule E rules.