Parts of the Kelly report may not be fair – but MPs are going to have to deal with it

By Jessica Asato / @Jessica_Asato

Sir Christopher Kelly’s report, leaked early as ever, has reached the right conclusions. In an article for LabourList earlier this year, I suggested that second homes should only be eligible for the average mortgage payment for their constituency, but Kelly’s suggestion that MPs should be restricted to claiming rental payments is equally good. It will stop the outrage of MPs making personal profit from taxpayer subsidy and in the long-term it even might help to shift politicians’ general over-concentration on home ownership to those who have to rent.

There have been two notable MPs welcoming the report this morning – John Mann and Tony Wright – but sadly not all MPs are acting as sensibly.

The first main complaint is about the report’s suggestion that MPs who live within a 60 minute commuting radius won’t be eligible for a second home allowance. They argue that the House of Commons sometimes sits as late as 11pm while MPs need to be in before 9am for meetings.

My first reaction is that this is the case for a fair few London workers, particularly those in the city – most of my lawyer friends have regaled me with stories of working until 1am only to be asked to return at 8 the next morning.

But perhaps the best outcome of this new rule will be that the House will be forced to consider implementing more family friendly working hours. The common argument against this is that MPs would never be able to get through parliamentary business in time, but if the summer recess were shortened, which after all lasts from July until October, surely the House could find a way. It’s not as if vast numbers of MPs attend parliamentary debates in any case – why not give Select Committees more scrutiny powers and reduce debating time in the chamber?

An outcry also surrounds the employment of family members by MPs, which Kelly’s report will prohibit. I have a little more sympathy for this – the life of an MP is a peripatetic one and more often than not leads to huge pressure on family life. But while the MP, rather than Parliament, remains the employer of staff and the money to pay for staff comes out of their allowances, it’s hard to see how the public could have confidence in MPs who employ their relatives.

As Tony Wright said this morning, some of Kelly’s conclusions may not be fair, but this is a mess of Parliament’s own making and it will have to deal with the consequences. What is to be hoped is that most MPs swallow their pride and accept Kelly’s recommendations in full. Any further special pleading will simply add to the public’s disgust – if that were actually possible.