Taking the Mick

Published on Saturday 2 February 2008 17:41

SHE'S young, American and sometimes wears a flower in her hair. He's 62, Glaswegian and wears traditional black robes.

It was never going to be a meeting of minds, but after years of wrangling, Heather Brooke believes that she is about to celebrate a famous victory over Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons.

This week, a tribunal will hear an appeal from Brooke, a leading campaigner for Freedom of Information (FoI), that could force MPs to disclose details of exactly how they spend their parliamentary allowances. For some MPs, this is an appalling prospect – it would allow public scrutiny of every taxi receipt, home improvement, restaurant bill and hotel bill, opening a revealing window into their lifestyles.

Martin, as Speaker, is the man Brooke blames for blocking this and many other requests for information about how MPs spend public money.

"If it goes through, it'll shake up the whole system," she says. A journalist and writer, she honed her skills as an intern in Washington state, where she used the US's more generous right-to-know laws to rifle through giant boxes of receipts submitted by her local senators.

"It was great," she says. "I could even see what they'd eaten on room service – but it was ultimately disappointing because they'd all been scrupulously honest. They were all too well aware that their expenses could be picked over by taxpayers." Scrutiny, she says, kept them honest.

Her experience of US freedom of information has put her in a good position to challenge the inadequacies of the UK system. "Most people are too British about these things," says Brooke, who now lives in London. "I'm an American and I'm not going to take any compromise."

She points to Scotland as an example of what can be achieved. The fact that MSPs are open to greater scrutiny than MPs under Scotland's more open FoI regime should, she says, shame Westminster into reforming itself and opening its books to the public. This week, the battle comes to a head: an Information Tribunal will decide whether the House of Commons' authorities should be forced to provide details of how MPs spend an annual allowance of up to 22,110 for living away from their main home.

For those resisting change, the timing could not be worse. Last week, there was outrage at the actions of Tory MP Derek Conway, who used his allowances to pay inflated salaries to his two sons, at the public's expense. The naked nepotism and disdain for taxpayers' money seemed to confirm the public's most cynical suspicions about a culture of mendacity in our political classes.

While it is perfectly within the rules for MPs to employ relatives, Conway's downfall was overpaying his student son Freddie tens of thousands of pounds from his office allowance without being able to prove that he had done any work. A similar charge is laid in relation to his other son Henry, and the police have been asked to investigate allegations of fraud.

So will Brooke be victorious over Martin? Will a new openness usher in a new era of trust and accountability in the secretive world of Westminster? Or will it simply provide an excuse to rake over the details of MPs' private lives?

Openness and transparency are words often used by politicians. Whether or not they truly believe in the concept is, however, debatable. In Scotland, scrutiny of office allowances and expenses has already led to the resignations of First Minister Henry McLeish and Tory leader David McLetchie.

Brooke and her colleagues want to be able to see "every single receipt and remittance" submitted by all MPs. They first submitted their FoI request to the Commons' authorities in July 2004. It was rejected.

A year later, the Information Commissioner asked Brooke to submit the names of individual MPs, so she selected a sample of some of the most prominent figures of the time: Tony Blair, David Cameron, Sir Menzies Campbell, Gordon Brown, George Osborne, John Prescott, George Galloway, Margaret Beckett, William Hague and Mark Oaten.

The Commissioner did not agree to release the amount of detail that Brooke wanted, so the case has gone to this week's Information Tribunal to resolve. The hearing, chaired by a barrister or solicitor, will be held in public in central London on Thursday and Friday, although it may take a couple of weeks before the verdict is announced. The loser could still appeal to the High Court. If it goes in Brooke's favour it will affect all MPs, not just the 10 listed.

The body that turned down Brooke's request was the House of Commons Commission, which meets in the Speaker's House once a month and is chaired by Martin, the MP for Glasgow Springburn. It has a supervisory role, which includes responsibility for the Palace of Westminster's staff and running costs.

The Speaker's supporters say he comes in for unfair criticism simply because he is chairman of the commission, a body whose members include the Leader of the House Harriet Harman, shadow Leader Theresa May, Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell, Conservative MP David Maclean and Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey.

Harvey says Martin has the backing of a majority of MPs – especially on their accommodation allowance, which covers the cost of a second home. Most backbench MPs use the money to cover the cost of living in London, while Martin and ministers who are based in the capital tend to use it to pay for staying in their constituency.

"I think I represent mainstream opinion among MPs when I say that if the public wants to know about our office, travel and staff costs, that's perfectly legitimate – but what goes on behind our personal front doors is our business," says Harvey.

"If we're going to get to the state where local press or political opponents complain because we spent 25 on a kettle when Argos does them for 6, or we bought curtains from John Lewis when you can get them for less at the Co-Op, then they can get lost – it's no business of the public what we spend on our own homes."

In the wake of the Conway scandal, however, the public might not be as understanding as some MPs hope. Brooke says the scandal could have been avoided if there had been openness and the Speaker had not blocked her FoI request in January 2005, asking for a full breakdown of the names and salaries of all MPs' staff.

"This is the reason to have transparency – to avoid ending up with an embarrassing scandal where the whole political regime is damaged by one person," she says.

Last week, post-Conway, the party leaders appeared to agree the status quo was no longer tenable. They agreed MPs would have to be more open about how they spend their 90,600 annual allowance for secretaries and researchers.

As many as 170 of the 646 Westminster MPs are thought to employ relatives. David Cameron, the Tory leader, has admitted that a relative of his wife Samantha is employed in his constituency office in Witney, Oxfordshire. In Scotland, Labour MPs David Hamilton, Tommy McAvoy, David Marshall and Adam Ingram and Liberal Democrats' Sir Menzies Campbell and Malcolm Bruce all employ their wives as constituency secretaries. Bruce's wife Rosemary is paid 28,500 and Labour MP Ian Davidson employs his son Colin as an intern on the minimum wage.

Scottish Tory spokesman Ben Wallace, the Lancaster and Wyre MP, employs his wife Liza as a researcher – a job she held before they married.

Martin has previously employed his wife Mary as his constituency secretary. He declined to answer questions from former Independent MP Martin Bell in 2004 about how much she was paid and the exact nature of her work. And for the past nine years, he has employed his daughter, also called Mary, to work in his constituency office in Springburn.

Asked why his daughter Mary got the job, Martin's spokesman said: "She's trained in office administration, has been active in the constituency and has worked with the family in the constituency. In short, she makes an excellent candidate for the job."

Martin declined to say how much his daughter was paid. He also declined to say why his housing allowance had steadily risen from 6,106 in 2004-05 to 9,551 in 2005-06 and 17,166 in 2006-07. The Speaker classifies his 'main home' as his grace-and-favour apartment in Westminster and the expenditure is on his home in Glasgow.

His spokesman said: "Every claim he makes is scrutinised by a very senior member of the finance department to make sure it is justified. His costs have risen, so his claims have risen and they have been approved in the proper way."

Brooke is not going to be so easily fobbed off. "It's crucial to focus on Michael Martin," she says.

"He is in a prime position to make freedom of information a reality. He's no friend of freedom of information and never has been. Yet there is a conflict of interest. He should not be making decisions about the release of staff names when he has family members on the payroll, nor should he be making decisions about the release of housing costs when he has a vested interest in stopping that information from being disclosed."

It is a classic confrontation – Brooke, the right-to-know campaigner, versus the Speaker, a defender of the right to privacy. The stakes were always high. After the Conway debacle, and given the renewed public interest, they are higher still.

Accommodation that's on the House

MPs' housing allowance, known officially as the additional costs allowance, aims to reimburse MPs for the cost of staying away from home when on Parliamentary business. The limit in 2006-07 was 22,110.

&149 MPs can claim for the following items: rent; hotel bills; mortgage interest payments and legal costs; the interest on remortgages used to pay for home improvements; television licences; parking permits; locks and other security measures; food; cleaning utilities bills including heating, lighting and water; council tax; furnishings including white goods and electrical equipment; decoration and "necessary" repairs; and building and contents insurance.

&149 Items EXCLUDED from a list of acceptable expenditure include: the capital part of mortgage payments; computer equipment and services; mobile phone bills; "antique, luxury or premium" furnishings; travel; entertainment; and repairs which "enhance the property". MPs are advised to seek advice before they undertake any major repairs which they expect the allowance to cover.

&#149 Receipts for all hotel bills must be submitted to the Parliamentary authorities but for other items receipts are only needed for amounts over 250.

Source: The House of Commons' Green Book on Parliamentary Salaries, Allowances and Pensions.