Harman expects to end expenses “culture”
By Alex Stevenson
Harriet Harman has insisted the “culture” responsible for systematic abuse of MPs’ expenses will be destroyed by current reforms.
The leader of the House was giving evidence to Sir Christopher Kelly’s committee on standards in public life, whose inquiry will make the final conclusions about how MPs’ allowances will be reformed.
The government plans to legislate to establish a parliamentary standards authority (PSA) to provide independent regulation of MPs’ allowances.
“Whatever contributed to how we got there, we know with transparency and independence… [that’s] the way forward,” she said in her opening remarks to the committee.
“There won’t be a culture, there will just be MPs getting on with their jobs.”
Later in the session she appeared frustrated with committee members’ repeated concerns about the risk of a culture, however.
“There shouldn’t be a culture around allowances,” she added, as Sir Christopher backed up doubts about the effectiveness of the regulatory body.
“There won’t be a culture!” she finished.
Ms Harman revealed her approach to how the PSA, a government-sponsored body, does not tread on the toes of Sir Christopher’s proposals which are not expected to be published until this autumn.
The PSA, she said, was described as “hardware”, while the committee’s job was “providing the software”.
Earlier constitutional expert Anthony King of Essex University congratulated the committee for not “rushing out” proposals.
He said there was a “remarkably skittish mood” at present and that it would be wise for everyone to “calm down”.
He also called for MPs’ salaries to be increased from the current £64,000 to around £80,000.
Prof King said: “I think if you’re asking people to do a pretty demanding job… that does require quite a wide range of skills then you should pay them on the same basis if they were doing a similar kind of job in other lines of work.”
