There will be some weeping over the Corn Flakes at some Northern Ireland breakfast tables this morning. Sir Christopher Kelly has ordained that holding a job in the Northern Ireland Assembly and in Westminster is not acceptable.
That was one of the surprises (there aren’t many after all the leaks!) in his report. Northern Ireland parties are very skilled at getting special favours from UK governments, so this may not come into law by 2011 – we shall see.
More broadly, on the changes to all MPs’ allowances and whether he was confident they would be implemented, Sir Christopher just told me at his press conference that “you never get a complete assurance” from party leaders on things like this.
Some MPs have raised the prospect of using the period of consultation that the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has to hold under law as a moment to intervene and dilute these proposals.
Kelly warned them that would be “an error” and dangerous. Kelly reserved particular scorn for Harriet Harman, who used a weekend interview to associate herself with MPs who employ relations and don’t want to sack them (as the report suggests).
He said she’d been supportive of the idea of stopping relations being employed when she gave evidence to the committee.
In general, he seems extremely jaded about the party hierarchies who he blames for leaking what he feels was a garbled version of his report after he briefed them last week.
IPSA acting chief executive Andrew McDonald is, I hear, thinking now of a shorter consultation period than originally planned to enforce these plans – six weeks, not three months.
He is confident he can – even though the body is not fully staffed – get new rules in place for a date known in the jargon as “P+1″, the first day of a new parliament after a general election.
Like the new chairman selected yesterday, Sir Ian Kennedy, he expects to use his judgement not simply “input” the Kelly recommendations. But that doesn’t mean the IPSA is likely to do what some MPs are hoping for and seriously alter the Kelly plan.
- UPDATED: New post on the Kelly review
- Related: MPs forced to bare all for voters
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Of course MP’s will attempt to dilute the proposals. Thats what they do.
Sorry to praise the opposition, but the BBC carried a good report yesterday showing the Swedish system. We need something similar in the UK.
Let the Government buy 650 flats which it rent to MPs for use whilst iin London.
Don’t rent a whole block as that’s a security issue and MPs would probably hate living next to each other after a day in the Commons, just spread these flats around London suitably located for approriate tube lines…
The only other qualification is that the Housing Ministers flat should be at the top of a 1960’s Tower Block, where the lifts are always broken…
It may be a good idea if in the future the discussed independent pay body may work on an agency basis and only the hours worked directly on the job were paid for The swatting up and reading could be done in their own time, travel expenses , clothing , petrol other sundries could come out of their own pocket. When anything of relevance dries up then we wouldn’t need to pay them by giving them the hours.
Then when they have finished serving the country we could simply forget that they existed and throw them out pensionless.
if MP’s don’t accept the recomendations,i would hope that the names of any that seek to downgrade them will be published so the electrate have the opportunity to pass a verdict on them
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