Internet News Blog
May 20th, 2009
Well it looks like the expenses MPs are allowed to claim are set to change. The Commons speakers has bought forward emergency proposals that are supposed to stop misuse of tax payers money. The list includes publishing expenses quarterly online (which is good), MPs have to be completely open with tax authorities on if there house if their second home or not (being honest, that will be a difficult one for them) and mortgage claims must be accurate (more no lying rules).
I really think that the fraud squad should be involved in this. This was there money that they were using to buy what ever they liked! I think that the worst thing about it all is that they were allowed to claim £250 a day with out a receipt. £250 is more than I earn in a week and they are able to claim that without any proof that they have spent it. They even get £400 per month to spend on food. Normal people have to buy there own food and I don’t think many of them spend £100 a week on it, I certainly don’t I always spend carefully.
OK so MPs need to live in two places, in there constituency and in London and should be entitled for money to cover that but that is all it should be. They should have to pay for all the expenses for there house in there constituency and have expenses for the London apartment. I think that the apartment should be provided for them to stop all the doing houses up to sell on.
Expenses for food should also be provided if they are in there London apartment. But £100 a week is ridiculous. With that amount of money they can feed there whole family, with out paying anything out of their huge salary, which is £64,766, not counting the income from the houses they did up with our money.
Any kind of claim should need a receipt. From what has happened they obviously can not be trusted so need to be monitored very closely. We don’t have enough jobs in the country so employ some one to monitor expenses, with the amount MP’s claim it would employ a number of people.
I think that the MPs should make more use modern technology. Why do they have to constantly travel backwards and forwards to and from London when meetings can easily take place using conference calling. There are plenty of systems out there like the Polycom audio conferencing that meetings can take place using. With the Internet there can also be secure video conferencing that can be set up where ever there is a laptop (and buying a new laptop will give them something to claim for).
I think the best thing that can be done with MP expenses is take the power over the rules away from them. It’s like putting Winnie the Pooh in charge of a honey factory and being surprised when you quickly end up with a very sticky and guilty looking bear. There needs to be a completely independent body set up that will review all the rules and set up something reasonable.
Tags: expenses, MP claims, tax
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)
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