MPs must stop the self-justification and focus on reform

Dear Nadine,

I read in your article in The Independent today your reference to a conversation we had earlier in the week. You wrote:

“At a drinks party the other night, I put it to the YouGov founder Stephan Shakespeare that MPs prior to my intake had been told for many years that the ACA was in lieu of pay. ‘Yes, we have all known that,’ said Stephan. ‘The question is how do you move forward, what will be put in its place?’ When Stephan said ‘we all’, what he meant was the political and media establishment. The BBC knew it. Every journalist knew it.”

The impression this gives is that I have sympathy for the use of the ACA as a form of supplementary income. I don’t. I think it should be there to pay for the genuine additional costs of doing the job of an MP, and that’s all. The fact that everyone knew how it was being used doesn’t make it ok. This is what the MPs just don’t seem to be able to understand, and what your article shows you still don’t understand: the public does not think this is right. No amount of self-justification changes this. It’s all very understandable on the human level. Had I been elected an MP when I stood in 1997, I might have done exactly the same. But it’s still wrong.

My question “what will be put in its place?” isn’t me pondering, “by what new method should we now top up MPs’ income without the public knowing?” I was asking, “if we want to pay MPs more, then we should decide that openly and come to an honest and fair settlement.” As you well know, that was what our conversation was about.

You describe the present process as a “witch hunt”. I agree it isn’t pretty. But how would you expect the public to react? How do you think Conservative MPs would have reacted if it was only Labour MPs that had been doing this? I think we can guess.

Good luck with the next part of the process – working out how we get a more productive relationship between the people and their parliament.

All best, Stephan