10/04/2020
Yesterday saw a lot of posts about the news from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) that MPs would have the amount of expenses they can claim for the current financial year increased by £10,000.
Social media became awash with posts expressing outrage that MPs were being given an extra £10,000 on top of their annual £26,000 expenses for office expenses and generous salaries.
It has been implied that this is extra money for the politicians.
However, the money is specifically set aside for the additional expenses of their support staff who are now required to work from home. It is money to cover the cost of additional IT equipment (laptops, printers, phones) and the expenses the staff incur in working from home.
This is not a means for MPs to get extra money.
Some have expressed their annoyance that the rules on providing evidence for expenditure are being relaxed at this point.
This, again, doesn’t mean that the MPs can use the money for any purpose they choose.
Moreover, it is worth noting what the relaxations are. The following text is take straight from the IPSA statement:
“For costs incurred since the start of January 2020, suspended the 90-day rule for claims. This means that you can still claim for these costs, even if you are unable to meet the normal 90-day deadline. If you do not have access to a receipt or invoice as a direct result of the coronavirus, and cannot wait for reimbursement, we will pay a claim without evidence and ask you to send in the evidence as soon as you can.”
It is not the case that they will be able to ‘get away’ with evidencing this expenditure.
It might actually be worth pointing out who IPSA are:
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is a public body in the United Kingdom created by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, largely as a response to the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009. It establishes and monitors the expenses scheme for Members of the House of Commons and is responsible for paying their salaries and expenses. Following revisions to the Parliamentary Standards Act in April 2010, IPSA was also given responsibility for setting the level of MPs' salaries.
The suggestion that the body responsible for overseeing the expenses and salaries of MPs in the wake of the expenses scandal would engineer a way for MPs to get extra ‘free’ money doesn’t make sense.
I think it is also worth actually noting the extraordinary packages of support the government have introduced in these times.
It may be that the support is not, as yet, sufficient to help everyone. Those who have only recently become self-employed, and have not yet submitted a self-assessment tax return, obviously have not given HMRC anything to base support on.
It has been suggested that the self-employed are being required to submit evidence in order to receive financial support. This is patently untrue. The support will be based upon the actual records that they have already supplied; they don’t have to resubmit it.
I am at a loss to understand what other method those people think should be used to calculate support.
We are living in unprecedented times. This is a time for us to focus on the impact of the coronavirus on us all and is definitely not the time for political point scoring.
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