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The Prosser Perspective.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser.

15 October 2009

When I was a boy I used to enjoy my first day back at school after the summer holidays and for the last twelve years I’ve looked forward to returning to Parliament after the long summer recesses – but when we all returned Westminster on Monday the only thing most MPs were looking forward to was Tuesday.

Monday was the day that the much heralded letters from Sir Thomas Legg were delivered to Members setting out the findings of his team of auditors and in some cases demanding repayments or requesting clarifications. We were told that the Legg Letters would be placed in our pigeon holes at noon and when they didn’t appear the time was revised to 2.30, then 4.30 but in the event they didn’t appear until well after after 6 o’clock.

One colleague remarked that the drip-drip nature of the news leakages during the day and the postponed arrival of the letters was worse than Chinese water torture and the pain showing in some Member’s faces confirmed their discomfort.

Legg’s remit was to audit all our claims made over the last five years and make judgments and recommendations based on the rules as they existed at the time of claiming. So colleagues were surprised and some were angered to find that he had imposed his own rules and bench marks and applied these retrospectively. In particular he decided that expenses for garden maintenance and cleaning should be limited to £1,000 and £2,000 per annum respectively.

My letter from Sir Thomas made no reference to items like gardening, cleaning or mortgage interest payments and there were no criticisms about extravagant or improper claims. In fact his only comment, after scrutinising sixty months of claims and receipts was to ask for clarification about one claim of £650 for the supply and fitting of laminate flooring to three rooms made in 2006 and I have provided him with this. He has made no demands for any repayments and I don’t anticipate any.

I haven’t been affected by retrospectivity but I do think it’s unfair. When I was serving on the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill I opposed the Government on proposals to change the citizenship rules because they would apply to people who had made their applications under the original criteria and I concluded my speech as follows:

“I will not detain you any longer except to say that we do our best not to apply laws and rules retrospectively. I do not want to introduce a sour note, but let us imagine that the new rules that the House is now considering with regard to MPs’ allowances and expenses were applied retrospectively. It would give us all a great deal to think about”

That was last June, long before Sir Thomas was commissioned by Parliament to conduct his audit. I didn’t for moment think then, that retrospectivity would actually apply to MP’s expenses, I was simply using the example as a means of making my point – but it certainly has given a lot of colleagues a great deal to think about.