MP Allowances 1

According to a judgement by Norman Baker, the LibDem MP, in today's Mail, the allowance dispute is not over yet. There is yet to be perusal of MP staff costs and office expenses.

The Mail estimates that in allowances in 2007-08, MPs received £92.9 million in addition to their salaries. The breakdown is:
Second home funding - £11.7 million
Travel £6.2 million
Staff costs (Westminster and constituency) £50 million
Office costs £15 million

Bearing in mind that there are approximately 650 MPs, each million pounds of expenditure means approximately £1,539 on average per MP. So the £50 million spent on staff translates as £76,923 on average for each MP.

Since there are some whose office expenditure to some extent is covered by cabinet work, and some such as Philip Hollobone do their own secretarial and cleric work, the average is likely to be approaching £80,000 for the remaining MPs. Included in this number is the disgraced Derek Conway, but his expenditure does not seem to be above this level on an annual basis.

There must therefore be some MPs employing teams of staff, probably including family members. This is where Norman Baker sees further exposureswhich will cause problems for some. The newspaper claims that earlier this year they had identified 206 MPs who had paid almost £8 million to families in employing them as staff, or nearly £39,000 per MP.

In due course this will emerge into the public domain, with possible severe consequences.