Parliament: Jobs For The Boys, Money For Old Rope

Posted on January 29, 2008
Filed Under Politics |

Let nobody pretend that New Labour is the only political party mired in sleaze and corruption. The Tories always have a few lessons tucked up their sleeves as far those failings are concerned.

Just as an aside, did MPs agree that they should only have a salary rise in line with inflation, but that they should keep an extra ten thousand squid a year allowance on the books? You can see why.

Have a look at this snippet from The Guardian:

A Conservative MP faces a 10-day suspension from the Commons for “misusing” his staffing allowance.

Derek Conway, the Tory MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, has been reprimanded for using the money to pay his son while he was studying at university.

The MPs’ watchdog, the Standards and Privileges Committee, said that the salary paid by Conway to his son, Frederick, was “excessive”.

At first glance, you will probably think that a mere ten day suspension is such a mild slap on the wrist that the misdemeanour must be trivial. After all, plenty of MPs do not visit Paliament for much longer than ten days and nobody even knows they are not there.

You might also think that the way expenses money is regulated must be stringent indeed. It would hardly be just a leaky money pot, with cash sloshing around for anyone to take. After all, this is the sacred taxpayer money extracted from hardworking families, so it would not be used for trivially and artificially inflating the household income of a public servant, surely.

No, it must be that an otherwise honest MP accidentally slipped his son an extra 50 new pennies for bob-a-job week or cleaning his old jalopy and inadvertently claimed it on his expenses form.

But wait. What’s all this?

Conway employed his son as a part-time research assistant from September 2004 until August 2007. When he started, Frederick was 19 and about to start a full-time undergraduate course at Newcastle University. Frederick was paid a basic salary of £11,173 for working 17 hours per week. He was also paid three annual bonuses worth £2,000, £6,300 and £1,766.

Mawer, who completed the investigation before standing down as commissioner at the end of last year, concluded that Frederick was paid more than he should have been given his experience, and that the bonus payments exceeded the maximum allowed under Commons rules. He also concluded that it was unlikely that Frederick was actually working 17 hours a week for his father on a regular basis. […]

“This arrangement was, at the least, an improper use of parliamentary allowances; at worst it was a serious diversion of public funds. Our view is that the reality may well be somewhere between the two.”

So, you have an MP, who earns - what? - about five times the normal wage of most people, who then essentially fiddles it so that his student son does not have to live on the breadline like most people, but can, in fact, live the life of Reilly.

This is what he said in his own defence:

This afternoon Conway apologised to MPs. Speaking in the Commons chamber, he said: “I unreservedly apologise to the house for my administrative shortcomings and the misjudgments I made.”

Conway, who said he had let down his family, constituents and local Conservative association, continued: “No judgment from any quarter could be more harsh than that which I apply to myself.”

Oh, so that makes it all right, then! Hurrah!

UPDATE:

It seems that Conway is really determined to keep it all within the family, as it emerges that it was not only his son Frederick who was the recipient of Conway’s largesse with public funds (ie taxpayers’ money), but also his other son Henry who received indirect public funding to go through university.

Labour MP John Mann said a second inquiry into Conway would be almost certain today as he confirmed he would be making a fresh complaint to the parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon.

MPs - aren’t they just wonderful!

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