Labour MP Elliott Morley claimed £16,000 for a mortgage which didn't exist. At best this could be construed as negligent. At worst it is fraudulent. Let's for a moment give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the former.
What I would like to know is why on earth the House of Commons Fees Office allowed £16,000 of our money to be used on a claim with no backup paperwork? Talk about a system not fit for purpose. Anyone would think it was a division of the Home Office.
The trouble is that Fees Office staff have been instructed by the House of Commons senior clerks to continue their habit of being deferential to MPs and assuming that they are all "Honourable Members". This comes from the top. Time after time they have given MPs the benefit of the doubt on expenses claims.
It is not just the Speaker of the House of Commons who is responsible, but all those at the top of the House of Commons management structure. We may all want to see some political scalps from this, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that heads should roll in the House of Commons itself.
Perhaps at last, this will be the spur for some much needed reforms, not just of the accounting structures but the whole way the Houses of Parliament is administered.
UPDATE: Gordon Brown says he is "very concerned" by the Elliott Morley revelations. Yes, I'm sure he is. But what is he going to do about it. Give a lead for once in his life? Or refer Morley to a committee.
21 comments:
What is the relevant difference between what Morley (Lab £16k) has done and what Baroness Uddin (Lab £100k) and Lord Rennard (Lib Dem £41k) have done?
All are suspected second home frauds, yet no one has yet been investigated, disciplined, sacked or had the whip withdrawn. Is the fees office even conducting their own inquiries on this?
Both Brown and Clegg are being pathetic. They hope this will just go away with time.
The Fees office employees are constantly bullied and intimidated by quite a few MPs
The problem is that this is a system designed by MPs, run by MPs and - until recently - with no public scrutiny. Add to that the assumption that they are all "Honourable Members" therefore if one of them claimed for something that they perhaps shouldn't have, the only possible explanation is that they made a mistake. It is simply inconceivable that this could have been something nasty like fraud for example.
Come on. This isn't negligence. An MP has to sign a expenses form something along the lines of "to the best of my belief the above expenses have been necesaarily incurred on parliamentary business" and Morley will have done this more than once. How could he possibly claim for mortagage interest without realising that he had repaid the loan.
Speaker Martin changed the setup of his post and put himself in total control. The payman Taylor reputedly went to him FIVE years ago to say the expenses system was out of control. Martin told him "Mind your own business".
And that reform should include the House of Commons Refreshment Department, which the taxpayer subsidises to the tune of £5.5 million
Being "referred to committee" sounds slightly Orwellian.
No! No! Not Committee Room 101. Please, not that!
:)
Not only is the Speaker's position untenable, but Don Touhig's is too as both have been revealed by The Daily Telegraph to be milking the system they are supposed to oversee and whose reputation they are supposed to maintain. Both therefore should be forced to resign with immediate effect as a clean-up cannot start with them in place.
Eric Morley: An updated and a questionIs it worse than fraud?
I'm thirsty and the washing up needs doing. I think I'll set up a commitee to detirmine whether I should walk into the kitchen.
Why does Brown need a commitee to do the bleedin' obvious? Avoiding a knee-jerk reaction is one thing but this is just jowl-shaking till we all forget about it and they can go back to business as usual.
I agree with you Iain. You will have had the standard briefing as a candidate in a marginal seat - 'You have two friends as a new MP- your whip who tells you what to do; and the Fees Office, who arrange to pay you.'
As a new MP you put yourself in their hands. You have got elected, probably cleaning you out financially; you want to change the world; make an impact in your seat and hang on to your slim majority; you have to set up an office and a second home; and manage/ juggle family, party and constituency commitments. If the people administering the rules say it's OK - you get on with the important stuff.
On the other hand, the abuse by grandees - I have the piano wire, where is the lamp-post?
The staff of the fees office should be interviewed by the police, under caution. It is quite plain that they have either been complicit in a massive and on-going fraud, or that they have been nullied/bribed or blackmailed into looking the other way. There is no way theyhave done their job with the dilligence required and that would be ingrained in a life-long Civil Servant like Andrew Walker.
The police should not wait to talk to the commons authorities about this they should do it NOW. if there is nothing in it they can apologise afterwards, like they do with 'terorists' arrested at dawn at gunpoint.
I think this would open up the whole saga.
'Gordon Brown says he is "very concerned" by the Elliott Morley revelations ... But what is he going to do about it ... refer Morley to a committee?'
Here's a preview:
'We have for some time now been working on proposals which will enable us to bring forward measures which are not simply designed to divert attention from the problems of David Cameron and the Tory party but which will enable us to work towards cross-party agreement on serious and detailed proposals to deal with these matters which clearly now require the attention of all political parties and which the hard-working people of this country expect us to deal with as a matter of urgency and those proposals will now be brought forward for consideration so that we can reach agreement on what needs to be done and this is something which I understand and ..... zzzzzzzzzzz
We all know that the problem here is not so much actively claiming for specific things, but of sending an expenditure list to the Fees Office and letting THEM tell YOU what is claimable.
Thus we have the figleaf for what amounts to little more tha a lazy, slapdash bonus system.
Does anyone remember Elizabeth Filkin?
She was pushed out by the very people who are now pretending innocence.
What goes around comes around.
WV: shtic
So why don't we stop calling them "honorouble members" and call them by something else.
Like, um, their names maybe?
So Members are now complaining that they received the benefit of the doubt from the Fees Office, when in the past they have criticised uppity staff for asking them to explain themselves?
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/admin/adminminutes0607.cfm
Members were responsible for the accuracy of their own claims and their complaince with the Green Book. The first place they should look is to their own consciences.
No doubt if the Fees Office had stood up to DD and others more frequently and persistently in the past, you would have been running pieces about how Commons officials should know their place.
Non-deferential: So why don't we stop calling them "honorouble members" and call them by something else.How about Thieving Cunts?
Elliot Morley: putting the Cunt in Scunthorpe
The Daily Mash put this in perspective
About four years ago a Fees Office employee stole £120,000 from the Speaker's Christmas Card Fund (a charity) and got 2 years for it. On a similar sliding scale some of our honourable members could be in for longer spells.
I suspect Iain would like to see at the top of the HoC management structure people who know their place and who do what they are told by his mates.
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