EU Parliament makes MEPs richer…

In case you thought there was no purpose to the EU Parliament, I post this from the Western Mail to prove you wrong. The Parliament makes MEPs richer. Why it can’t be scrapped and a system of video conferencing used in its place, the MEP’s remaining in their own countries, I don’t know? Certainly it’d be cheaper, and more environmentally friendly – each MEP has the carbon footprint of a small third world country. Anyway, for your amusement and information:

“NEIL and Glenys Kinnock came under fire from critics last night as details of their estimated £10m European earnings were calculated by a pressure group.

“Campaigners from Open Europe, which argues for greater transparency, calculated the pair’s multi-million-pound earnings from allowances, wages and pension entitlements over a 15-year period.

“It worked out their salaries and perks included:

“A total of £775,000 in wages for Mrs Kinnock and £1.85m for her husband, adding up to £2,625,000;

“Allowances for Mrs Kinnock’s staff and office costs of £2.9m;

“A £64,564 “entertainment allowance” for Lord Kinnock;

“A total of five publicly-funded pensions, worth £4.4m, allowing them to retire on £183,000 a year;

“A housing allowance that allowed them both to claim accommodation costs even though, as a married couple, they lived in the same house in the Belgian capital between 1995 and 2004.”

“Asked by the Western Mail what he wanted to say about yesterday’s revelations, former European Union Transport Commissioner Lord Kinnock, 67, replied: “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Quizzed as to whether the figures reported were accurate, the former MP for Islwyn, who led the Labour Party to two general election defeats before quitting in 1992 then spending 10 years in Brussels, said: “I’m not making any form of response.”

The junior Minister for Communities

Why doesn’t Gordon want this man’s expenses published? What’s he been spending our money on that’s so bad? Dosen’t make sense, does it?

“Mr Brown was accused of “falling at the first hurdle” in his efforts to reform Westminster by refusing to release the full report of an inquiry into Mr Malik’s affairs.”

Cut MP’s and the sleaze!!

You may be forgiven, if like me, you are fed-up to the back teeth with allegations of sleaze, and with ongoing revelations about MP’s expenses – our Member’s of Parliament, even during a credit crunch, with wholesale closures and redundancies taking place out in the “real world”, and the banking system collapsing about our ears, still managed a nice fat rise – a bit like giving the electorate the finger while yelling “BALLS!”

But hold on a minute, it’s the Senior Salaries Review Body that recommends any increase; Parliamentary rules mean there’s no vote on a rise, which takes place automatically unless an MP voluntarily foregoes it. This April, MP’s salaries increased by around £1,500 an amount not to be sniffed at a time of zero rate inflation and other industries seeing pay reductions.

Gordon Brown (Honest Gord) instructed Cabinet ministers to waive the increase in their parliamentary salaries. Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader, and his deputy, Vince Cable, have also foregone the pay increase.

David Cameron responded by announcing that he would give up any increase in the salary he is paid as Leader of the Opposition…which means his pay stays static at £141,820. Shadow cabinet members who receive only their parliamentary salaries join with Labour and Lib Dem backbenchers in receiving the pay rise.

Then we hear: “MPs are set to begin censoring their own expenses records before they are published!” Yes, MP’s will be able to remove any embarrassing little items from the record before the electorate gets to see it:

“MPs argue that they must be allowed to vet their own claims because, they claim, they have unique knowledge of their constituencies and any “local issues” that may be raised by disclosure.”

The term “Havin’ a laugh” comes readily to mind.

We learn that the Labour MP for Falkirk, Eric Joyce emerged as Britain’s most expensive member of parliament, after claiming £187,334 in allowances and expenses in 2007-8. Jacqui Smith’s overall expenses claim, including travel, office and staffing costs, was £157,631. Figures released by the House of Commons authorities showed that Gordon Brown claimed £124,454 in expenses and allowances in 2007/08, while David Cameron claimed £148,829.

The biggest spender in the cabinet is Nicholas Brown MP, the Chief Whip, who claimed £165,315 in allowances and expenses in 2007-8…but the others aren’t that far behind.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting there’s anything “illegal” in most of these expense claims, but the second-home allowance and the broader expenses system has been grotesquely abused by the present generation of MPs. In fact, fair to say, they have eroded public trust in the financial probity of our elected representatives, one and all, and members of the public can be forgiven for thinking of them as “pigs at the trough”.

So the system for MP’s expenses and allowances MUST be reviewed. A target should be introduced (efficiency), and a saving made (overhead).

The opportunity should be taken to debate the question:

“Do we really need 646 Members of Parliament?”

In comparison to other countries the UK is massively over represented. With a population of 60 odd million people, we have 646 MP’s. Germany (82 million population) has 600…a potential saving here for the UK electorate of 46 salaries and expenses!! Russia (144 million population) has 450…the saving gets bigger and bigger! Japan (127 million population) has 470 – that’s double our population! So why don’t we think about a UK parliament of 240 MP’s? Finally the USA (293 million population) has 430 Congressmen.

If we accept the average cost of a Member of Parliament to be £500,000, (see note below) which covers salary, expenses, everything. Cutting the Commons by 65 MPs would ostensibly save £32 million pa. Cut the Commons membership by 100 and you have an additional £50 million pa to play with…the slogan could be cut MP’s and the sleaze!!

But a reduction in the size of the parliament makes an awful lot of sense.

Website Note.(The Commons, MP’s and general running costs, have cost the taxpayer £365,800,000 in 2006-07. According to Jack Straw, then Leader of the House, this figure equates to a cost to the taxpayer of £550,000 per member, per year)