Leader: MSPs out of touch with the public on expenses

Published on Thursday 9 September 2010 15:01

There are times when politicians are their own worst enemies. The publication yesterday of the expenses for Members of the Scottish Parliament proves that point beyond peradventure.

While everyone else in Scotland, in both the public and private sector, has had to curtail their spending, the exact opposite was happening at Holyrood.

It is not as if the spending has risen marginally. No, MSPs claimed a record amount of expenses and allowances last year, with payments totalling almost 11.7 million in 2009-10, a rise of some 6.5 per cent, or 706,394, from the previous 12 months.

In their defence, MSPs cited changes to the expenses system used to pay salaries to their staff. After a review of the system by Sir Alan Langlands, a former university vice-chancellor, a new payment was brought in specifically for staff salaries.

Now, it might be that some staff members were underpaid and exploited, though, as many are party activists, one might have expected they did their work for the cause, but when this newspaper asked for more details of the pay, Holyrood - supposedly founded on principles of openness and transparency - point-blank refused to give it.

So, as we have no way of knowing if this increase was done with the interests of lowly-paid staff in mind, we can only conclude that this is yet another example of the political classes being totally out of touch with the real world - where, they should remember, the voters they represent live.