Expenses - July 2010

The public sympathy for the plight of MPs under the new expenses regime is  limited, to put it mildly. Rather, we still have fresh memories of outrageous abuse and greed. Remember, however, half the Parliament is composed of completely new MPs who have done nothing wrong whatsoever. There are some real horror stories of colleagues, tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket, paying staff and office rental from their own resources until the new IPSA system gets sorted out.

I have had my own minor irritations and I confess to having lost my sense of humour and sense of proportion even if only momentarily. I am finding the new mandatory computer system very cumbersome and time consuming. I am no technophobe: I spent ten years designing and installing computer systems at the leading edge of financial software before entering parliament.

I have had three claims rejected by the system: discovering this was in itself a non trivial exercise.

The rejected claims are £10 for hiring a room at Ringwood’s Greyfriars community centre for a surgery; and three hotel bills (£25; £41; £39).

Greyfriars was rejected because I claimed it under general office expenses when I ought to have claimed it as accommodation. The hotel bills were rejected on grounds of ‘insufficient evidence’: basically they had detached and lost part of the receipt. Happily I kept photocopies and when I produced them the mistake was admitted, but I was told that they could not do anything to rectify their error until I initiated a ‘request for review’ using the computer system. I have spent several hours attempting to do so –including navigating automated telephone systems to reach a helpline which takes an age to be answered, and when you do get through is no help at all. I am not sure whether I have succeeded in requesting the review or not.

What has caused my temporary loss of humour and proportion is the fact that I have probably spent half a day chasing after a hundred quid, when I was actually quite busy and had much more important things to do.

I believe that the abuses that came to light last year would have been solved by imposing more modest budgets and a system of absolute transparency where every claim was published. Instead we have created an expensive monster that is undermining the work of Parliament. Perhaps one day we will summon up the courage to slay it, or perhaps not.