Brown and Cameron go head-to-head on expenses
By Ian Dunt
Gordon Brown and David Cameron have finally clashed over the issue of MPs’ expenses.
The Tory leader accused the prime minister of dragging his feet on the issue and called on Mr Brown to tackle wider issues, including the amount MPs can spend campaigning and the number of MPs in the Commons.
Mr Brown insisted only a vote could change the communications allowance and the appropriate place to look at boundary changes is in an independent committee.
“I’m trying to build a political consensus on change,” Mr Brown said.
“I wonder whether he needs an independent commission to work out whether to have tea or coffee in the morning,” Mr Cameron replied.
“Isn’t it time for us to see ourselves as the rest of the country sees us? How can we bring about the change this country needs, if we can’t change ourselves?”
Mr Cameron suggested the prime minister’s decision to investigate four years of expenses was the wrong way to go, especially because most MPs had not broken the rules.
But Mr Brown insisted some rules may have been bent, and urged the opposition leader to show cross-party unity in the fight to regain parliament’s legitimacy.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg urged Mr Brown to immediately ban Labour MPs from profiting from house selling on property bought by the taxpayer.
Mr Brown did not respond to that, deferring those decisions to Sir Christopher Kelly’s report.
In a seperate development, Speaker Michael Martin could face a vote of no confidence within days after Tory MP Douglas Carswell’s motion attracted support from both sides of the House.
It is “the first time anything like this has been done in 300 years” he said.
