Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, the Tory leader, David Cameron, and 16 other MPs are to have their parliamentary expenses published today, after the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, abandoned a fight to keep them secret. A detailed breakdown of the MPs’ “additional cost allowance” will show for the first time how much the taxpayer has paid towards subsidising mortgages and utility bills for second homes.
Details of expenses for all 646 MPs, dating back to 2004, will be released in October. This prompted the Commons authorities to declare last night that Martin, who has led attempts to keep MPs’ expenses private, has sanctioned a “vastly increased” extension of transparency.
Freedom of information campaigners are likely to say the moves do not go far enough, because Martin is pressing ahead with a separate high court challenge to stop the release of a receipt-by-receipt breakdown of the expenses of 14 prominent MPs or former MPs. The Speaker has launched the legal battle after security advice that MPs’ safety could be put at risk by two key demands of the information tribunal: the release of their addresses and the release of receipts which could allegedly help terrorists to draw up a picture of their movements.
No addresses and no receipts will be released with the expenses claims that are published today. Instead the claims will be published under various category headings, such as claims for mortgage interest payments, utility bills and council tax.
The expenses to be released today follow freedom of information requests by the BBC relating to seven current or former MPs. In all the expenses of 19 MPs, or ex-MPs, will be released, because the Commons authorities decided to allow the details of the seven MPs or ex-MPs to be included with the expense claims of the 14 MPs involved in the high court challenge. Brown and Blair appear on both lists, which brings the total to 19.
Other MPs whose expenses will be released today include Cameron, George Osborne, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy. The Speaker has ruled that details of the claims of all 646 MPs will be released on the same basis in October.
Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat MP who is a member of the Commons commission, said last night: “The house has agreed to disclose information broken down into sub-categories, a principle which was agreed some time ago. This will give far greater transparency to MPs’ expenses claims than anything which has been seen in the past and will be followed by similar disclosure for all MPs in October, once the information has been collated into a digestible form which can be understood.
“We hope and believe this will show a serious willingness to embrace transparency and will lead to a vastly increased and serious level of disclosure. But we will continue our case in the high court to prevent the disclosure of MPs’ second home addresses and other intrusive details of their personal lives.”
Cameron, who has made little secret of his belief that the Speaker is undermining trust in parliament by fighting against the disclosure of MPs’ expenses, last night welcomed the decision. A spokeswoman said: “We welcome this. We are pleased that this is being resolved.”
The Tories have given a flavour in recent weeks of Cameron’s expenses. He claimed £21,359 in 2005-06. Most of this went on mortgage interest payments on his constituency home in Witney.
Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, has led criticism of the Speaker for opposing attempts to open up MPs’ expenses to scrutiny. He said last month that the delay in releasing details of MPs’ expenses was adding to the public’s distrust in politics.
Martin closed down any discussion of the matter in the Commons last month. He said the matter was sub judice, a claim challenged by freedom of information campaigners.