Baroness Scotland Defends the Indefensible

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More Peer Pranks

The above cottage, situated near Cardigan, west Wales, has cost us £140,000 so far.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, the children's minister, was born in London and lived in the capital for the first 42 years of her life before becoming a peer five years ago.

A few months after entering the Lords she and her husband bought the above small cottage for £147,000, then designated it as her 'main residence' even though she continued to live in her London home and the cottage is a five-hour journey from her place of work.

This has allowed her to claim the night subsistence for ministers living outside London. The sum is now £38,280 a year and is paid automatically by her department along with her £73,600 salary because she said she lived outside London.

Baroness Morgan is the person responsible for the proposals to introduce criminal record checks for parents who ferry children to sports or social events.

Lsst week Morgan's sister-in-law was staying at the cottage and neighbours said it was often used by Morgan's family and friends. The next door neighbour said: "It's a holiday home ... I haven't seen Delyth for around, oh, a couple of weeks ... I think she lives up near London somewhere."

Yesterday, Morgan issued a statement saying she had "always adhered to the rules on allowances." She said her work had been predominantly in London but she divided her time between the capital and Wales. She said she considered herself Welsh and had relatives there. She initially stated : "I have had a family home in west Wales since 1986." However, she later clarified she was referring to a home owned by her parents. She added: " I moved back with my parents to Wales in 1986 where I have spent much of the last 23 years. I bought a property in Wales at the first opportunity in 2004."

A wee bit more investigative journalism would surely show when she bought her London property. Then we would know if she had been living in west Wales during the ten years she was the CEO of Breakthrough Breast Cancer before she became involved full-time in politics and paid by the taxpayers.

Baroness Scotland last week, Baroness Morgan this week - who will it be next week I wonder.

Source: Sunday Times

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MPs Pay - A Solution

Several times in the past days I have commented on blogs about MPs' pay.  After the expenses scandal dies down it seems the MPs will demand a pay review because they do not consider £64,000 is enough for the work they do.

I have a question.  What other job requires no formal qualifications, no business experience, no specified work experience and yet the starting salary is £64,000 plus expenses?  In the past days I've pondered this question and have yet to find even one area of employment where this is feasible.

Why aren't MPs on a graded salary scale like other public servants?  No officer joins the army   and starts at the salary of a Lt. Col. (£65,717).  They join as a 2nd Lt. on a salary of £24,133 and that is usually after spending a year training at Sandhurst earning £15,268.  Let us not forget messing costs come out of these military salaries and all must travel second class - no business class for our military.

The argument against this is MPs may only be in their jobs for a maximum of 5 years and therefore a good remuneration is required to attract 'the right type of person'.  What is this right type of person? Who evaluates the right person?  Most wannabe politicians come up through the party system and that is fine, but for the inexperienced and long-serving to be receiving the same salary is incomprehensible. It is this pay structure which has possibly encouraged many of the longer serving MPs to claim excessive allowances.

If they prove themselves to be good at their jobs surely there is no reason why they should not be re-elected therefore the 5 year reason does not stand up to scrutiny.  Most ex-MPs can find cushy little directorships to keep the wolf from the door or be elevated to that bastion of the 19th century the House of Lords. The average worker has a pittance of a state pension to look forward to at the age of 65 plus any private pension to which they will have made considerable contributions throughout their working lives. 

Muriel Gray states in the Sunday Herald that MPs salaries should be raised and allowances scrapped.  All well and good then raise the upper end of the grading.  Start a new MP on around £35,000 with yearly increments of £5,000.  Using such a system an MP who has been in post for 10 years would be receiving £85,000 which is a respectable income for someone who doesn't require any qualifications for the job.

It would be acceptable to the public that MPs claimed London accommodation when necessary but the purchase of property should be banned and also the claiming of council tax, food and utilities. 

Travel should be second class.  If our representatives wish to travel first class then they should personally pay the difference.  There will be squeals of 'I need to do work on the train' and other excuses but that is what they are - excuses.  

As for the House of Lords that's another matter.  It needs overhauled from top to bottom, a salary paid instead of the attendance allowance and members must be elected.  It will be difficult, but not impossible, to create a salary structure for the Lords because, like the Commons, it is not compulsory to attend each and every working day. It is time our top civil servants put their intellectual heads together and worked out remuneration packages suitable to all concerned and that includes you and me.

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Baroness Uddin and Her Unfurnished Home

This is Baroness Uddin who became Britain's first muslim peer in 1998. The Baroness lives in the East End of London.  Sounds as if that's handy because it's only four miles from the House of Lords.

She bought a two bedroomed flat in Maidstone in 2005 and of course there's nothing unusual in that because people do have homes outside London.  What is unusual is that the Baroness named the flat as her main home to claim almost £30,000 a year in accommodation expenses from the House of Lords. Unfortunately for the Baroness residents from the five other flats in the same block all say they have never seen her there.  They could see through the windows that the bedrooms were unfurnished. 

Last weekend, hours after the Sunday Times had challenged Uddin about her "main residence", the baroness's BMW 4x4 was spotted at the Maidstone flat and members of her family arrived. Yesterday she appeared at the flat but refused to prove it was furnished by showing a reporter round.  Wonder if she's claimed for furnishings via the John Lewis list.  The answer is very possibly yes.

 

She has claimed that her main residence has been outside the capital since 2001 but refuses to say where, despite repeated questions. How can she get away with such behaviour? What are the people who supposedly check expenses doing? This is theft, nothing more, nothing less.

Update:  Iain Dale has just posted about this but adding the information that the East End of London home in which the Baroness lives with her family is a Housing Association property built for low income residents and she pays a highly subsidised rent.  The woman has no shame.

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