The answer to the expenses scandal is to pay MPs more

The Paul Richards column

I don’t care what other people earn, unless it is below a level that can sustain a decent standard of life. I don’t think it’s ‘unfair’ if the chief executive of Suffolk county council earns over £100,000, or executives for the BBC get paid £400,000, or business leaders get paid in the millions. I am relaxed about the filthy rich. Let them swirl in a cesspool of Cristal champagne, beluga caviar, and Columbian marching powder. My socialism is about levelling up, not down.

This is not a popular view, especially amongst the liberal-left. I thought the left-wing pressure group Compass’ suggestion for a ‘high pay commission’ was one of the more ridiculous ideas of the year. If Labour has any middle-class southern supporters left, this will soon drive them away; but I recognise that it plays to a section of the Labour psyche which sees wealth as inherently immoral, on the grounds that all property is theft. (Cue old joke: why did Marx & Engels only drink peppermint tea? Because all proper tea is theft.)

Older readers may remember that when Militant had two MPs at Westminster in the 1980s (Terry Fields and Dave Nellist), they took only ‘a worker’s wage for a workers’ MP’, and donated the rest to the Revolutionary Socialist League. It won’t be long before that slogan is dusted down, although in these more moderate times the donations will be to the RSPCA or National Trust.

Which brings me to the expenses scandal. Never has so much vein-popping outrage been expressed, so much hyperbolic prose poured from newspaper leader-writers. I have never known a political issue to dominate the public consciousness like MPs’ expenses and allowances. If any MP ever had any doubt: it’s really really serious. Trust is leaching from our political system like blood from a severed limb. The public, only periodically concerned about sweat-shops in Bangladesh or rising sea-levels, are horrified to learn that their MPs earn more than they do. People who are happy that Dan Brown can become a gazillionaire by writing the same book twice, or that Delia Smith could buy Norfolk with the profits of books telling us how to defrost mince, are apoplectic to learn that their MP earns over £60,000 a year and gets stupidly generous expenses. And all they do is work 16 hour days and every weekend helping people and creating laws.

Twenty years in politics, journalism and public relations has taught me an uncomfortable truth. The facts are pretty much the last thing to count for much. What matters is the impression, the feeling, the emotional reaction from the public. It doesn’t matter that the taxpayer didn’t pay for an MP to buy a house for his ducks; they think they did. Nor that in most cases, MPs were following to the letter the rules on expenses, under the tutelage and guidance of House of Commons officials, as part of an overt arrangement that viewed expenses as part of their salaries. The louder they shouted they were ‘within the rules’ the more it turned the public against them.

What is currently destroying the reputations and demolishing the careers of scores of MPs is not the facts, but the impression that they are filling their boots on the taxpayer. It’s an impression that is indelible. Like lawyers and estate agents, the profession of politics is forever tainted by the charge of blood-sucking.

You don’t need to be a genius to work out what to do. Introduce a simple system of expenses for parliamentarians that would be instantly recognisable to anyone working for a charity or business, with three basic rules: no-one profits from their expenses (and you get sacked if you try it); expenses are only paid when a real receipt is shown; and expenses can only be paid against clear criteria (second-class travel, accommodation whilst on work duties, etc.) This system could be introduced by next weekend.

But the issue of MPs’ salaries remains. I want to see a parliament made up of people from a range of backgrounds, not just those with private incomes or rich spouses. I like the fact we have a sheet-metal worker as Defence Secretary and a postman as Home Secretary. More of them, and fewer barristers would improve parliament no end.

So the real answer to the expenses scandal is not the public execution of MPs on College Green, although that seems to be where we are heading. It is a pay rise for MPs. Not of course to the dizzy heights of television executives, football managers or celebrity chefs – but perhaps at least to the level we pay our council chief executives or NHS managers.