Horsham MP's parliamentary expenses

By Andrew Skudder

Reading the letters page of the West Sussex County Times, May 1st 2009 has been a good way to mark the workers' holiday...


When the latest revelations about the Horsham MP's expenses came out last week I wrote in to the paper, and I was not alone. One page of the paper contains letters with these headlines:

• Why is our MP unable to commute to capital?
• Arrogance of expenses justification
• He is exploiting not just the system but also the taxpayer
• Mr Maude's snout is at least as far in the trough as anyone else's
• Politicians rate on a par with the bankers

At the top of the page is a comment piece by a district councillor, trying vainly to defend the indefensible and justify the MP's expenses - which is a very noble thing for him to do, considering that just the MP's third home allowance alone probably dwarfs the total payments the councillor gets for all his many hours of work on the council. He must have written it with gritted teeth.

At the bottom of the page is Francis Maude's regular column, entitled Gurkhas are big issue of week. How he must wish that was the case... Let's look at the page again:

Number of letters about gurkhas: Nil
Number of letters criticising Francis Maude's financial arrangements: 4

Here is the full text of my letter:

I was astonished a couple of weeks ago to learn in your paper that Francis Maude, as a Home Counties MP, finds it impossible to commute to London like the majority of normal people manage to do. I was even more amazed that he finds it necessary to own a second home at our expense – for which I am sure he would pocket any capital gains if he ever sells it.

And now we discover that it is not a second home, but a third home, and that he already owns a suitable property in the same street but rents it out. Did he find himself struggling when he reduced his additional jobs to just the three directorships, plus the job with Barclays?

Like many normal people I used to commute every day into London, where I worked alongside people who travelled in every day from Horsham, Crawley, even from the coast – and all at their own expense.

Even if we were to accept the need to stay in London sometimes, it would not justify the purchase of a flat when parliament only sits for part of the week, for forty or less weeks a year, even if an MP attended a lot more often than Francis Maude manages. To make matters even worse he also claims travel expenses of nearly £4000 for journeys between home and Westminster. Most of us would manage to travel up to London and back every day for that. How can you claim expenses for a home in London and at the same time claim for enough travel to make that home unnecessary?

Your correspondent Trevor Dayneswood briefly touched upon the real cause for concern towards the end of his letter to you: with Francis Maude’s poor attendance at parliament and his many additional jobs, is the taxpayer really just paying for him to be able to get to board meetings on time? I am sure he has been careful to make sure that everything is within the letter of the law, but how he can claim it is within the spirit of the law I do not know.

Only a couple of weeks ago in Francis’ Footnote, Mr. Maude said, in another context, “It is unfair that the actions of a few individuals should in any way threaten the reputation of politicians in general”. So true. As a candidate myself I expect that voters will now assume I am only interested in being elected so that I can take Maude’s place on the gravy train. For the record, I can assure them that I intend to travel to London by train every day when I have to attend parliament and during the recess I will be in the constituency and not in London attending to business interests.

It was interesting that this all came to light only a week after a snide editorial comment about government ministers’ “all-consuming demands of completing their personal expense returns” and then when the Horsham MP is found to have his snout at least as far in the trough as anybody else the response in the comment column of your new edition was, at best, equivocal.

The only good news is that the taxpayer will now be able claw back a small amount from Francis Maude in the form of the extra tax on his many extra jobs.

One other aspect of all this, that several letter writers refer to, is that Francis Maude lives outside the constituency - by his reckoning half an hour further away from London. I wish I had known that when I was first selected,and a local newspaper reporter asked me on the phone if I would move to the constituency in the unlikely event of being elected.

I found the idea bit ridiculous at the time, as I would only have to move about 100 metres to be within Horsham constituency, but I was made to feel on the defensive for living literally just over the border (but three railway stops closer to London). I wish I had known then what I know now.