Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between George Freeman and Lord Murphy of Torfaen

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy]

The result, of course, is that the service that we provide our constituents becomes less and less effective. There is no reason in this wide world why the old system of ensuring that personal expenses are separate from office expenses should be taken over by IPSA. Its starting that process seems to me to underline the fact that it has accepted the principle that they are different.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the expenses scandal represented a deep crisis of trust writ large in our political establishment? The establishment of IPSA as an institution is rooted in that distrust and reflects it. As a new Member, I find myself approaching it with trepidation as if it were there to catch me out rather than help.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the system would be cheaper, better and more trust-nurturing if instead of monitoring every single claim, IPSA assumed that MPs were honest and just carried out occasional, random checks without warning, as is done across so many areas of public life? If anyone were found to be cheating, IPSA would punish them, rather than assuming that everybody was cheating and spending millions of pounds of public money on that basis.

[Paul Murphy]

The hon. Gentleman is right in the first instance. There is and was a great need for public trust in our expenses system, as that has obviously been lost in the past year or so. However, that is not in any way contradicted by the need to improve how IPSA works. It is so important that there should be transparency, accountability and proper checking on all the claims. Today’s newspaper revelations about what Members have claimed indicate that people are looking at the details online, and they can examine the hon. Gentleman’s details and mine any day of the week. So there is transparency—of course there is—but the problem comes if a system is so bureaucratic, costly and difficult to administer, and occasionally so unfair, that the people suffering are not necessarily the Members of Parliament, but those whom we represent. That is the basis of today’s debate.