MP's Expenses are Published

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act all MPs expenses claims are now published every year. The figures for the 2006 -2007 financial year came out recently.

I believe that it is quite right that the figures are published.

What I do find annoying is the way in which some journalists, who know very well how the figures are calculated, choose to present them. What they do is to add all the separate headings together and simply present the total figure, as if this was all money going into the MP's pocket.

My claims for last year amounted to:

London weighting on my salary:         £2712

My travel:                                         £1154    (nearly all is an Underground season ticket)

The two items above are the ones which do end up in my pocket. All the following items are the costs of running a staffed office, and being able then to respond to constituents and deal with their problems.

Staffing (pay etc for my staff):             £85847

My office running costs:                     £14567

Stationery and Postage:                     £1675

IT Provision:                                       £1031

If you add all that up it comes to £106,986 which is the figure that all the press choose to print. I don't suppose that the editors of the papers would think that the pay of their staff or the costs of operating their offices should be described as their 'expenses' but that is what they choose to do with these figures, when they know the breakdown.

Whether MPs are worth what they get is a perfectly valid issue to argue, but at least the journalists, who wouldn't dream of telling you what their expense accounts cost, and which you are paying for when you buy the newspapers, could be honest about what the system actually is.

Nov 2007

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