Jonathan wrote about the possibility of housing MPs in the Olympic Village back in April, after Cllr Ian McCord floated the idea with a petition on the Number Ten website. As part of our response to the MPs' expenses scandal, at the TaxPayers' Alliance we've released a short research note going through some of the practical considerations around housing MPs in the Olympic Village.
Having government-owned apartments does seem a reasonable way of avoiding MPs profiting from their expenses, and all the recent scandals over things like flipping. However, with investment budgets being slashed, the idea that we can't afford to build roads but can afford to build new homes for MPs would not sit well with the public. Using the Olympic Village, which is being paid for by the taxpayer anyway, avoids that problems and provides a range of homes a short commute from central London:
For more details, see our research note.
