The Times Guide to the House of Commons

They were undoubtedly helped by a culture of compliance among those inside the Commons Department for Resources, affectionately known by its historic name, the Fees Office. These largely anonymous public servants waived through payments, some subsequently blaming bullying by MPs as the reason they signed off the payments. Yet on the rare occasions they were glimpsed in public, the senior figures appeared every bit the accessory in a relationship that had become too cosy. When Andrew Walker, then head of the Department of Resources, appeared publicly at a tribunal in 2008, he argued against greater transparency over MPs’ expenses. His argument was that this would “distract them or lead to additional questions which they have to defend, even if they have (acted) perfectly sensibly, because there is a great desire to look at the private lives of public individuals”.

Only when the full, unredacted publication of every receipt submitted for expenses was published in the summer of 2009 were MPs so cowed that they agreed to change the system for good. And so, at the end of 2009, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), arbiter of the conduct of the new generation of MPs, was born. Together with Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, they have drawn up a new, far tougher, regime.

Gone are the days when generous second-home allowances, coupled with rising property prices, combined to mean that a valuable property empire was a near inevitability for any MP beyond London. Also gone are the days when MPs in Zones 3-6 could classify themselves as living out of London, thereby helping themselves to a £20,000-plus second-home allowance. Farewell, too, to the so-called “food” payments, a monthly cheque of £400, no questions asked, no receipts required.

Today’s MPs face a new austerity package of expenses that Sir Ian Kennedy, the chairman of IPSA, admits is a response to the expenses crisis. In effect, the new generation of MPs is paying for the crimes of the last. Many face the prospect of a lonely existence cut off from their families and living in one-bedroom flats in the cheaper districts of London, unless they supplement the cost from their £64,766 salary. Renting is now the only option. Only MPs who were re-elected and already have houses they own can continue claiming for mortgage payments, and then only until August 2012, forcing an earlier-than-expected sale of many homes.

London MPs will be defined as those who live within 20 miles of Westminster or can reach any part of their constituency within 60 minutes by public transport in peak hours, meaning that 128 MPs in this Parliament will be unable to claim for extra accommodation.

Beyond the housing allowance, the clampdown is equally severe. Only MPs with children under the age of 5 will be able to claim an extra travel allowance that takes into account their family circumstances. All MPs must travel in standard rather than first class, although ministers will still be allowed to travel first class under the government expenses scheme. One small concession by IPSA agreed to allow MPs to continue to employ one relative, continuing a long-established parliamentary tradition. This has still prompted howls of protest from some who pointed out that the first indication of the depth of the expenses scandal emerged when Derek Conway, then a Tory MP, was found to be paying his son but was unable to prove that he worked for him.

Yet in spite of the still-evident levels of public scorn at MPs’ handling of their claims, several spent the early days of this new Parliament protesting about the new settlement. Some Members claimed that they were being forced to sack their researchers because of unexpected changes to pensions arrangements for staff. Others complained about over-zealous IPSA staff who would deal with personal queries only in writing by email, then never reply, and require marriage and birth certificates before paying for family travel.

Meanwhile, some MPs were angry that IPSA hired three press officers, some paid more than backbenchers, while demanding that Members pay for expenses such as constituency offices out of their own pocket and claim the money back later. Some MPs reacted so badly to the new rules that they were warned to stop abusing staff or risk legal action. MPs now suffer the humiliation of being greeted with warning signs that read: “Abuse of staff will not be tolerated.”

The new Parliament was unable to draw a clean line under the expenses affair. The first scalp of the session was David Laws, the Lib Dem MP for Yeovil, who was forced to quit as Chief Secretary to the Treasury less than three weeks into the job over £40,000 of rent claims that he paid to his partner, James Lundie. After 2006, payments to family members and partners were banned by the Commons, but Mr Laws demurred from declaring his relationship, kept secret even from his own family, to the parliamentary authorities. Mr Laws’s insistence that privacy rather than profit was behind the move was not enough to justify an apparently straightforward breach of the rules nor prevent his resignation.

It was an early reminder of the toxic consequences of abnormal expenses arrangements, and how the general election had done little to dilute this.

A few words of friendly advice for aspiring MPs

Chris Mullin

Labour MP for Sunderland

South 1987-2010.

Afew days after I was selected, in June 1985, an editorial appeared in the Daily Mail. “Poor Sunderland,” it began, “first its football team is relegated and now comes even worse news…” The Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, was not best pleased either. Not long afterwards, on a visit to the North East, he was overheard asking: “What has gone wrong in Sunderland?” He went on: “First they have an MP who is a boil on the arse of the Labour Party,” a reference to my estimable colleague Bob Clay. “And now they have gone and selected a certifiable lunatic.”

Despite this unpromising beginning, I was elected in 1987 with a swing to Labour more than double the national average. Being a friend of Tony Benn and having played a part in the uprising in the Labour Party in the early 1980s, I did not expect on arrival in Parliament to be carried shoulder high into the Tea Room and I was not disappointed.

At my first meeting of the parliamentary party there was a post-mortem examination on the outcome of the election – we had, after all, by now lost three in a row so it seemed a good idea to see what lessons could be learnt. I got up and made what I thought was a conciliatory little speech, the gist of which was that “we must turn our guns outwards and not shoot at each other”.

Up got Roy Hattersley, then the deputy leader of the Labour Party. “What Chris ought to know,” he said, “is that we aren’t taking any prisoners.”

And so it proved. For several years I put my name down for every vacancy on the Home Affairs Select Committee, without result. My fortunes began to change only when my campaign to free the various innocent people, 18 in all, convicted of just about all the main IRA bombings of the mid-1970s, bore fruit. A cause that had once seemed eccentric and extremist was now mainstream.

Suddenly I was respectable. I could no longer be denied a place on the Home Affairs Select Committee and scarcely an eyebrow was raised when, in due course, I became chairman and later a minister. Although I never scaled the Olympian heights, I like to think that I left the odd footprint in the sand during my 23 years in Parliament.

Here, for those who come afterwards, are a few tips that they may or may not find useful.

Take Parliament seriously

Given that we struggle so hard to get ourselves elected, it never ceases to amaze me that so many colleagues disappear as soon as the final bell rings each week. If we, the elected, don’t take Parliament seriously, why should anyone else?

Never lose sight of the fact that our primary, albeit not the only, function, as Members of Parliament is to hold the executive to account for the considerable power that it wields. Something we do imperfectly. This need not consist of making brilliant speeches to an otherwise empty chamber. Well-targeted, prime-time interventions in ministerial speeches or statements are often much more effective.

Strike a balance between constituency and

parliamentary work

So far as possible it is desirable for an elected representative to share the same sunshine and the same rainfall as his or her constituents. By all means live in your constituency and make sure that you are visible, hold surgeries, open an office, attend fairs, fêtes and concerts, but not to the exclusion of an active role in Parliament.

Some of my more modern colleagues, especially those in marginal seats, take the view, for which there is little hard evidence, that they will improve their chances of re-election if they rush around pretending to be fairy godmothers to their constituents (“Hello, I am your MP. Have you got a problem that needs solving?”).

This, in my view, is a mistake. First, because it is beyond our powers to resolve the personal problems of many of our constituents and disappointment is the most likely outcome.

Secondly, because pavement politics (and I intend no disrespect) ought to be the preserve of local councillors. Thirdly, because excessive devotion to the small picture distracts from the primary function of an MP, which is to represent his or her constituents in Parliament. Please note, I am not saying neglect your constituents; only that there is a balance to be struck and that, in recent years, the pendulum has swung too far in favour of parochialism.

Put your name down for a place on a good select

committee

Preferably one that deals with issues of interest to you and your constituents. You may not be successful at first, but do persist. Having been appointed, take it seriously.

The ground rules for a successful select committee member are as follows: (a) read the brief before the meeting; (b) turn up on time; (c) keep your backside on the seat throughout the proceedings (no nipping in and out to deal with supposedly urgent messages); (d) ask concise, relevant questions; and (e) do not indulge in petty politicking – conclusions should be reached on the basis of evidence, not prejudice. Active membership of a select committee can be one of the most fulfilling aspects of life in Parliament. The chairman of a good select committee has far more influence than most junior ministers, and these days they are also paid.

You are not an automaton

Do not waste time devising lollipop questions (“Could I trouble the Prime Minister to list his five greatest achievements?”). They do not impress anyone. By all means be constructive, support the programme on which your party was elected, but that does not mean that you have to sign up to every dot and comma, every piece of stupidity or foolishness devised by your political masters.

First, of course, make representations in private, but if all else fails and you want to be taken seriously there has to be a bottom line. On occasion, it may be necessary to vote against your party and in retrospect you may be vindicated, witness the Tory poll tax rebels or the 139 Labour MPs who voted against the Iraq adventure.

Do not be in too much hurry to become a parliamentary

private secretary

By all means sign up with one of the big fish, prime minister, chancellor, home or foreign secretary, but not with one of the middle rankers. There are far too many PPSs and for the majority this will be the peak of their careers. Most do not have enough to do and while away their time hanging around the lobbies dishing out patsy questions. A sad fate for otherwise intelligent people.

Don’t be afraid of cross-party alliances

One of the pleasant surprises of election to Parliament is the discovery that on many issues there are like-minded people in other parties and an alliance is often far more effective than ploughing a lone furrow. During the course of my miscarriages of justice campaign I teamed up with a ruddy-faced Tory backwoodsman, Sir John Farr, who, once engaged, was completely fearless. I inquired if our collaboration had caused him any trouble within his own ranks. “Only with the lawyers,” he grunted, “and they’re all arseholes.”

Don’t become a rent-a-quote

Try to stick to what you know about. Those who have opinions on everything are not taken seriously, even on their own side.

If at first you don’t succeed, persist

In the land of the soundbite, he who can concentrate is king.

Never lose sight of the big picture

Most of us went into politics to make the world a better place and in the hope that we had something to contribute. Outcome, not process, is what matters.

If you get a call from a company inviting you to do a

little lobbying, put the phone down.

Finally, a piece of advice that trumps all of the above.

Make time for your family

Politics is littered with broken marriages. Don’t let yours be one of them. Quite apart from which, a little hinterland makes you a better politician.

Chris Mullin is the author of a volume of diaries, A View from the Foothills. A further volume is due in 2010.

The pleasures of opposition

Paul Goodman

Conservative MP for Wycombe 2001-2010

Iwas first elected to Parliament in 2001. I departed nine years later after a further election, disagreeing with the consensus view that the Commons should be a chamber of professional politicians. In almost a decade, I never sat to the right of the Speaker’s Chair, on the government benches. Although I served as a shadow minister for most of that period, standing down from David Cameron’s front bench of my own accord in 2009, I did not get the chance to be a real one.

So, although I am unqualified to pronounce on life as a minister I am, if not exactly an expert on opposition, at least in a position to reflect on it. Is there a point to not proposing but opposing? If so, what is it? And is it best done from the front or back benches? Indeed, what is the role of a backbencher in any event?

The answer to all these questions is: it depends on what you believe an MP to be in the first place. If you think that having those two letters after a name is useless unless they are followed by a title (Minister for Holistic Governance and Horizon Scanning; Minister for Best-Practice Benchmarking and Blue-Sky Thinking) it follows that you will consider opposition a waste of time.

Some MPs who have been ministers enjoy opposition for a while, or semi-permanently as elder statesmen, able to pronounce on how much better life was when, well, they were ministers. This only goes to prove the point that most MPs want to be ministers in the first place. A few enter the Commons wanting to be backbenchers, and speak for their local area; fewer still come wanting to chair a select committee. But for many of their colleagues, the wish for red boxes is compulsive. Parliamentary life seems meaningless without being Under-Secretary of State for Community Engagement and Meaningful Dialogue (until, of course, one is an Under-Secretary of State, at which point parliamentary life seems meaningless without being a Minister of State, and so on).

It remains to be seen whether the growing tendency of voters to back local champions rather than future ministers, a shift given new impetus by the expenses scandal, alters the parliamentary balance in the medium term. In the short term, it will not: most members of the new Commons intake of 2010, like their predecessors, will want a desk in Whitehall and Westminster.

For those MPs who want to be ministers, then, being a shadow minister is merely a preparation for the real thing, although one tempered by the horrifying possibility that this happy transformation may never take place. After all, one may be sacked. Or one’s party may lose the election. Or, worse still, one’s party may win the election…and one may not be appointed. The ripe fruits of power may be snatched away by the whim or caprice of the prime minister of the day.

Nonetheless, those who enjoy opposing – tabling parliamentary written questions or, better still, freedom of information requests (since ministers do not answer written questions if they can get away with it); digging for stories damaging to the government; hauling into the light information that ministers want hidden; pouncing on their weaknesses, especially at times of crisis; utilising every procedural device (urgent questions, ministerial statements, opposition day debates) to gain advantage and, above all, using the media – will be as happy as pigs in dung.

This gross image is less disparaging than it sounds, because the low politics has a high point: the holding of government to account. Ministers must be answerable for their actions. And to whom should they be accountable, if not to our elected representatives? Furthermore, the odd shadow minister, when not scheming against ministers or schmoozing lobby groups, may be a creator of policy, picking good ideas from bad ones, like a man removing nuggets of gold from earth, thus preparing a future government to make Britain better. It follows that there is a case for taxpayer-funded shadow ministers, although not, in my view, a persuasive one. A political class of taxpayer-funded politicians, distinct and thereby distanced from those who elect them, is already in place. Its position should not be further entrenched.

The majority of MPs of any party will not, at any one time, sit on its front bench. They will soldier on as backbenchers, whether in government or opposition, willingly or unwillingly. And if to be a backbencher when one’s party is in government is to be removed from the centre of events, being one in opposition is to be twice removed. The best chance of nudging one’s way back towards them is to sit on a select committee. The quality of these committees varies greatly, but the better ones are well-chaired; have, therefore, a sense of purpose; cooperate across party lines; probe ministers and departments, performing an irreplaceable public service in so doing; and issue useful reports making strong recommendations.

Why, though, assume that the purpose of being an MP in opposition is to work towards the centre of events? Indeed, why think that this is the purpose of being an MP at all? I return to my first answer: it depends. If one believes that an MP’s work is invalid if he does not sit on a front bench, one will look at such a person with scorn. But why take this view? Members of the local Conservative Association or Labour Party may bask in the reflected glory of being represented by a Cabinet minister. But, as previously noted, a growing number of constituents do not: they want a local champion, not a future minister, someone who will reply to their emails quickly and deal with their problems effectively (even if those problems are outside the scope or beyond the reach of the local MP). They are the masters now, in an age of soaring consumer expectations, not servants in an age of deference trooping meekly to the ballot box every five years and voting either Conservative or Labour on the basis of class. This is the “it” that “they just don’t get”.

A question follows. If being an MP is a job, how can MPs not only have outside interests, but work as ministers? After all, being a minister is also a job, one that has no intrinsic connection with representing Chuff-nell Poges or Sin City South. In future years, the pressure to split the executive from the legislature may become irresistible. In such circumstances, opposition would be differently shaped and constituted, as would government. But until or unless this happens, the opposition backbencher, like his frontbench counterpart, must pack up his troubles in his old kit bag, pressing ministers on behalf of his constituents. After all, that is largely why he is there.

Life as a Member of Parliament

David Howarth

Liberal Democrat MP

for Cambridge 2005-2010

The central feature of parliamentary life is waiting: waiting for the division bell to go off; waiting to be called to speak; waiting for people to turn up for meetings or waiting for stories, good or bad, to appear in the media.

How one copes with waiting defines a parliamentary life. Some people manage to fill all those waiting hours with activity – signing piles of letters to constituents, replying to emails or (for London MPs) rushing to and from constituency engagements. Others, perhaps those whose constituents are not very demanding or who have organised their offices so efficiently that they have completed all their correspondence, engage in a parliamentary form of dolce far niente: hanging around the Tea Room (the best refuge in Parliament because the media are not allowed in), or, for the more distressed, the Strangers’ Bar, or arranging some form of escape – in the past, before the scandals, a foreign trip with a select committee, or latterly an early return home on a Wednesday evening. Some even take an interest in legislation, and spend their time writing amendments to Bills, although that is very much a minority interest.s

There is even an activity that manages to combine all three – giving the appearance of constituency activity and of taking an interest in parliamentary business but, in reality, doing nothing – namely signing early day motions. Members can be seen in every part of the building flicking through an important-looking blue document occasionally scribbling their signature on it. They are adding their names to EDMs. Technically, EDMs are motions the sponsors of which would like the House to debate some time soon, but on no specific day.

In reality, no one sponsoring an EDM expects, or even wants, the House to debate it. EDMs are merely a form of petition that only MPs can sign, a petition aimed at no one in particular that achieves precisely nothing. Even if every single MP signed an EDM, nothing would happen or change. They are, as someone once remarked, parliamentary graffiti.

Most EDMs are cobbled together by pressure groups with some simple-minded campaign message to promote, who have found some sympathetic, or fearful, MPs to act as proposers. The pressure groups’ main purpose, however, is not to create pressure for change but to give their supporters something to do, or merely to build the group’s database. Supporters are given pre-printed postcards to send to their MPs (or, increasingly, preprepared emails) urging the MP to ‘sign EDM no XXX’. The pressure group always gives the impression that signing the EDM is a matter of vast importance, a deception many MPs are happy to go along with if it impresses constituents or a gullible local newspaper.

But the attraction of signing EDMs is that it takes far less energy than the other method of making sure that one’s name appears in the local media, namely the intervention game. The intervention game consists of saying the name of one’s constituency – or, better still, the name of one’s local newspaper – on the record in the chamber or in Westminster Hall as many times as possible.

To achieve this end, MPs scan the agenda to look for opportunities to intervene in questions or debates and then rush from place to place so that they can pop up, utter the name of their constituency and disappear to the next opportunity as soon as is decent (or even sooner). The verb for this activity is ‘to ketter’, in honour of one of its greatest devotees in the 2005 Parliament, Philip Hollobone, the MP for Kettering, who managed to work the name of his constituency into almost every debate.