New expenses regime 'impeding' MPs

The new parliamentary expenses regime is 'impeding' MPs and must be reformed, Sir George Young said
12 April 2012

Parliament's expenses watchdog has come under fire from the Government as it laid bare more than £15,000 of wrongful claims by MPs.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) published details of 145 submissions it had thrown out in the space of six weeks because they did not comply with new rules.

Two were for more than £1,000 and many more ran to hundreds of pounds. At the other end of the scale, some were for less than £1.

Half an hour before the publication, Leader of the House Sir George Young released a highly critical assessment of the regime introduced by Ipsa since last May. He said the new system - introduced in the wake of the expenses scandal - was "impeding" MPs in doing their jobs and had to be reformed within the next two months.

Ipsa was "failing in many respects" to support the Commons and putting "undue pressure" on the family lives of existing parliamentarians, he said.

Sir George also took issue with the publication of rejected expenses claims.

"MPs must not be deterred from applying for expenses because they fear reputational damage as a result of failed claims made in good faith, nor from seeking advice for fear that the fact that they have done so may be disclosed and used against them," he said.

His intervention came in a submission to the annual review of the Ipsa system, which has incurred the wrath of hundreds of MPs since being set up to manage their expenses.

Downing Street said David Cameron also believed that Ipsa was not working properly and that the problems needed to be dealt with. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "You cannot have a system that costs £6 million a year to administer the expenses of 650 people. Ipsa was set up quite rapidly following the expenses scandal. Clearly there are problems with the way it is working. The Prime Minister's view is that we have got to deal with this."

The spokesman's comments drew a rebuke from Ipsa, which said Downing Street was "not accurate" about its running costs and that it had already promised to reduce its costs next year.

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