All the expenses claimed by MPs are to be published. Good. If they're spending our money, we have a right to know how it is being spent. What shocked me was the 'John Lewis' list:
MPs can claim around £22,000 a year to fund, furnish and maintain a second home, with mortgage interests payments claimable under this allowance. They can also claim up to £400 a month for shopping without receipts.
And money can be claimed by MPs for this in the following ways:up to £10,000 for a new kitchen, more than £6,000 for a bathroom, £750 for HiFi equipment and £2,000 for a furniture suite for their second homes.
How the hell can this be justified at all?! I don't begrudge MPs being paid some money off-set the cost of a second home - which their job requires them to have - but unless this money claimed on a second home is to be paid back when the second home is sold, it effectively amounts to a very nice payment of at least £22,000 extra per year. Plus any profit made through the increase in house prices.With second homes, either Parliament should own them and just allow the MPs to use them or MPs should pay us back at least the savings/benefits that they generate from owning a second home at the taxpayer's expense.
MPs should also have to provide a receipt for every single claim they make on expenses. If it is too small for them to bother with a receipt, it's too small for them to mind paying for themselves.
The expenses that MPs should be subject to audits to ensure that they are not defrauding the taxpayer. I doubt that many are on a massive basis, but when it is our money that they are spending it needs to be checked. The expenses should also be made public on at least a quarterly basis, so that we know what the representatives that we elect are charging us.
