I HAD wondered why, throughout all the brouhaha on MP’s expenses, we had not heard anything from Iain Duncan Smith.
With the disclosures in the Daily Telegraph about his office cost claims totalling £11,000 for work on the preparation of reports for the Social Justice Commission and your report last week on his “furious” reaction, his reasons for living up to his reputation as “a quiet man” become clear.
The House of Commons Green Book states precisely the purpose of allowances for office costs. Essentially they are intended solely to provide facilities that enable MPs to carry out their parliamentary and constituency duties. Apart from rent and property costs, payments to third parties are limited to “maintenance, interpreting services, recruitment and work that would reasonably be undertaken by a member of their staff”. It is obvious to me, and should have been equally so to Mr Duncan Smith, that the cost of developing Tory party policy does not fall remotely within that definition. The costs in question, which incidentally were paid to a former Communications Director of the Tories, should properly have been borne from party funds or the think tank itself. The fact that the claims were not for Mr Duncan Smith’s personal enrichment or pleasure is neither here nor there – they were inappropriate and should be repaid.
You report Mr Duncan Smith saying that he now “wants to see wholesale reform of the expenses system”. He was leader of a major political party for two years at a time when similar abuses to those exposed would have been taking place.
Irrespective of his own claims, it is not credible that he was oblivious as to how his own colleagues were exploiting the situation for their own benefit. Where was his call for reform then?
Dr Geoffrey M Seeff,
Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate,
Chingford and Woodford Green.
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