Average expense payback of a Welsh Labour MP – £2080

Average expense payback of a Plaid MP – £398.20

Expense payback of Wales’s Independent MP – £110

Average expense payback of a Welsh Liberal Democrat MP – £38.50

All parties have been affected by the expenses scandal, but some far, far more so than the others. Well done to Jenny, Roger, Mark and Lembit for not milking the system. It’s interesting to see that EVERY Welsh Tory MP had to pay a significant amount back.

Also well done to all MPs from other parties who didn’t. I give credit where credit is due at least!

(Statistics from the BBC and are rounded to the nearest pound. Please note – maths done by Matt O’Grady, who is an idiot and so should be used with some caution.)

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I’ve blogged alot at www.sustainwales.blogspot.com before but I’m blog-rusty so bear with me a few posts, hopefully I’ll make it worth everyone’s while.

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The team at the Welsh Lib Dems had been looking closely at International Business Wales (IBW) for a good while, prior to Monday’s release of credit card spending by IBW officials.

Our research had focused on assessing the effectiveness of IBW in directly attracting inward investment. We were also doing our best to build up a detailed picture of the IBW operation: Where are the offices? How many staff are in each office? What costs are involved? What are they doing? Why does inward investment fluctuate widely from year to year? Why could be only get figures for ‘promised investment’, ‘promised jobs’?

It’s surprisingly difficult to garner such information. From the IBW website you can see where most of the offices are located and who works in each of them but little else. A small number of focused information requests and a healthy dose of patience later, we were starting to get a grip on how IBW offices work.

It’s also worth mentioning that IBW and Ieuan Wyn Jones’ Dept. for Economy and Transport are doing fine impressions of leaky buckets, sieves and colanders of late. We keep being criticised for attacking Ieuan – in reality, we’re being handed, then dropping bullets onto him, not firing them. You can’t just sit on this stuff and I’d like to think the people who write to us with leads and concerns can see that we follow them up with decency and positive intent. We’re not slinging mud, we’re scrutinising the performance of government and many, even within government, are glad of that. We’ll always offer an alternative approach and we’ll always give examples of why the problems we identify matter in the real world.

It was becoming clear that much of what IBW do, was not being accounted for within logs of events held at IBW offices. We knew from FOI released to the BBC that all sorts of fun was being had at the New York Office. Hundreds of Welsh business greats had popped in:

“in the last financial year, the Centre, which is Wales’ focal point in North America, has received 230 announced visitors to the Centre (officials, politicians, BBC journalists, enterprises from Wales, academia, trade missions from Wales) together with 80 unannounced visits by individuals who recognise the Centre as being part of Wales. In addition, since its inception, the Centre has played host to a range of events and a range of high profile visitors including Steven Evans, the then BBC Correspondent for the United States of America, Elan Clos Stephens, the Chair of S4C, Peter Stead, the Chair of the Dylan Thomas prize, Guto Harri, the then BBC Correspondent for the United States of America, Katherine Jenkins, Carlo Rizzi, the Musical Director of the WNO and many others”

None of this sounded much like business time. In fact, it sounded alot like a jaded pastiche of Welsh culture ‘on tour’. I suppose Katherine Jenkins might persuade Bill Gates to set up a research institute in Bangor – but at what cost to the national rugby team? Lee Byrne would be left with Rhyddian to wet the pre-match eyes, while Katherine shuffled papers and carefully studied the FT on first class flights across the U.S.

By now our concerns had shifted – why had other Welsh business greats been left out? Why was Charlotte Church not searching San Diego for flagship investors in the burgeoning Welsh IT sector? Was there a hidden message in Tom Jones’ bizarre rendition of the national anthem at the Calzaghe v. not so Bernhard Hopkins fight – if you listen to it backwards it may just be the case that he’s espousing the virtues of Wales’ transport infrastructure. Perhaps Tom’s performance had more to do with the >£3k bash at Clancy’s Irish pub to welcome Calzaghe whilst wining and dining business people, as you do.

And then our request for information on credit card expenditure by overseas staff arrived. We wanted to sit on it, do loads of research, work out how much had been spent on Katherine’s rider, find out exactly how many first class flights there had been and who was staying in the Oberois, The Ritz, Hiltons and Crowne Plaza Beverly Hills?

• Why had thousands been spent at Pottery Barn Teen? What was Pottery Barn Teen?

• Why had thousands been spent at IKEA? Had the IBW staff made the mistake of following the IKEA ‘line’ and buying everything en route?

• What was the carbon footprint of all this travel? Is this what ONE PLANET WALES meant?

• Just how good does the steak at Bob’s Steakhouse in San Francisco look? How could they not go back the following night?

• Were there any staff vacancies with IBW?

• Why was the IBW website not available in Spanish, but was in Italian?

Attempts at humour aside, we weren’t surprised to see lots of expenditure, lots of travel and nice meals. As the Conchords say ‘it’s business time’ - and business costs.

We were surprised by the scale of expenditure, the decisions made on use of taxpayers money and the culture of spending across the IBW operation. This wasn’t about ‘civil service expenses’, it was about the culture of a worldwide, costly, taxpayer-funded arm of the WAG.

I’d settled on a fishing metaphor by Tuesday afternoon:
“Of course Wales should fish for investment, but more emphasis on the bait (the ‘offer’) and less on gold-plating our fishing rod please!”
Luckily, Kirsty was ignoring my garbled tosh – calling instead for balance and common sense in our approach to attracting investment – get the offer right first, the IT, the transport the skills.

We didn’t get the chance to dig further, the FOI was straight up on the Assembly website (for once!) and we had to raise the concerns we held. Did we provide journalists with a copy of the first class tickets on Monday? no. That took an extra 48 hours, buckets take time to leak, even when the holes are big.

By this point we’d been accused of lying, repugnance and an implied incompetence that had me spitting coffee onto Tuesday’s Western Mail. Kirsty was understandably peeved – nobody wants to be called a liar.

It’s a worrying time when you know you’re right but the First Minister seems pretty sure he’s right too.

Luckily, we’d done our research and we were able to produce two itineraries showing first class flights booked by New York office IBW officials. It’s amazing that we were required to produce these tickets and we weren’t expecting to have to do so. I would say this was an oversight but it was much worse, we’d foolishly trusted people to be as straight with Rhodri as they had with us.

Our concerns about the culture of spending, about effectiveness and approach had all gone out the window by Wednesday afternoon. The real scandal is that Rhodri Morgan was misled. The First Minister understandably felt sufficiently well-armed to shoot us down on Tuesday – the irony was that he only had words as evidence, where we had evidence for our words.

P J O’Rourke said that “A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them”.

After this week, you’ll see no fools at Freedom Central.

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It will require some in-depth studying, but the headline things seem to be an end to mortgage payments for second homes, more reciepts and an end to the link with Westminster salaries.

The BBC provide some analysis here . Meanwhile, Kirsty Williams has welcomed the report and promised to accept its reccomendations. More below:

Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats has announced that her group will accept the recommendations of the Jones Review, announced today.

The leader of the Welsh Lib Dems even announced before publication of the Independent Review Panel on AMs’ Pay and Allowances that her group was willing to accept recommendations of the independent panel.   

Kirsty Williams said:

“We as a group welcome the report and we will accept its recommendations. This is a fair and transparent system of financial support for Assembly Members.  

“The Independent Review Panel has produced a series of recommendations which will hopefully go some way to restoring public confidence in its elected representatives”  

Ends.

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They have led with the fact that nine Tory AMs spent more than £6,500 of taxpayers’ money on a ‘fact-finding’ trip to Brussels staying in what bills itself as the city’s best luxury hotel.

The paper also refers to the fact that Plaid Cymru’s two AMs for South Wales Central placed an advert in their own party’s conference handbook for £470. The Conference was held in Aberystwyth which is some way from the region they represent. This expenditure was on top of the £400 they each spent to use part of Plaid Cymru’s stand at last year’s National Eisteddfod.

Meanwhile, one interesting item of expenditure not featured in the paper is the £520 spent by each of Carmarthenshire West and South Pembrokeshire Tory AM, Angela Burns and Preseli Pembrokeshire Tory AM, Paul Davies for ‘press work’ to Hart Media Services. Presumably the extensive publicly-funded Tory press team in the Assembly were not up to the job.

There is no indication as to whether Hart Media Services has anything to do with Simon Hart, the Tory PPC for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire.

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It has been noted that the Conservative Leader Nick Bourne paid Haecceitas Ltd £2,438.79 in twoinstallments on 8 May 2008 and 7 April 2009 respectively for a website. Does anybody know where this website is?

The only site that we are aware of is this free blogspot account whilst Google does not throw up any new sites either.

Presumably there is a big launch planned and, given the time it has taken to develop and its cost, the site will be very good.

Update: The BBC have identified that Plaid Cymru AMs Chris Franks and Leanne Wood claimed £400 each towards the cost of the party’s stand at the National Eisteddfod in Cardiff. The rationale is apparently so that they could hold surgeries there. Their constituents would have had to pay £12 each to see their AMs with their problems.

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This will of course be the chief subject of the review that is currently on-going both in Westminister and Cardiff Bay but I think we can set down some important principles.

Firstly, it is the case that the role of an MP is not really directly comparable with any other job. They are expected (simultaneously in many cases) to be in two or more places at the same time, often hundreds of miles apart. They have a constituency role which means that they need an office, staff and a place to live in the area they represent and all the costs that are associated with that, and they need to be in London to do their job in the House of Commons. That involves expenses for accomodation, travel and staff there as well.

The members’ allowances system is designed to accomodate those needs and to ensure that the appropriate support is in place so that the MP can do his or her job. An MP must meet the day to day living costs that we all face themselves but additional, reasonable and legitimate costs that are needed to do their job should be reimbursed in the same way as I would expect them to be for any other job.

What the system should not accomodate however is the sort of systematic fraud that we have seen with a very small minority of MPs nor should it be the salary supplement that some clearly think it is. It is not there to enrich the Member of Parliament in any way whatsoever. That is why on principle I do not agree with mortgage subsidies and believe that a proper accounting system should be in place that insists on receipts for everything and sets out clear and unequivocal rules. It is also essential that there is absolute transparency and accountabiliy.

Parliament has fallen down substantially on most of these requirements and it must be the first job of the new Speaker to sort that out. If he or she does not do so then the legitimacy of our political system will be in doubt.

What does muddy the waters is those groups who should know better latching onto the very legitimate outrage about expenses to make their own point or to call into doubt what appears on the face of it to be valid expenditure. One such group is the Taxpayers Alliance who are famous for knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

Some MPs have used their allowances to fund extensive and in some cases wide-ranging research to inform and assist them in their work. Dai Havard MP for example paid Cardiff University £4,000 for a study on ‘Common Health Conditions in Merthyr Tydfil’. He and Huw Irranca Davies have also used their allowances to commission work off the Bevan Foundation on social issues that have a direct bearing on their work as an MP. All of that in my view is legitimate.

There is also a question mark as to whether allowances should be used to fund training for staff. The Taxpayers’ Alliance for example have condemned the use of public money to train Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price’s constituency staff in public relation skills. I believe other MPs have also used public money to train their staff, which has also been questioned.

If there is one thing I have learnt in my ten years as an Assembly Member it is that any elected member is only as good as the staff he or she employs. These staff have a multi-faceted role and their duties include assisting the MP or AM with casework, doing research, organising his or her diary and undertaking press and public relations work on his or her behalf amongst many other tasks. All of that is legitimate and if they are to do the work properly then they need training and support just like any other employee.

I have recently used my allowances to pay to train two of my staff on welfare benefits, which are not devolved but nevertheless forms a substantial part of my casework. The various Government departments recognise this by providing helpline numbers for AMs. This training has been put to good use recently when one staff member successfully represented constituents in two separate appeal hearings.

Parliamentarians are employers like every other and I believe that it is the duty of every good employer to develop their staff to get the most out of them but also to improve their opportunities to better themselves and enjoy a more fulfilling work life.

In this particular instance therefore I think that the Taxpayers’ Alliance are wrong. The use of public money to pay for the training and development of publicly funded staff is not just legitimate, it is a duty.

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The groundbreaking project asks people to investigate their MP’s expenses. http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/ A really good use of the internet – I strongly suspect it will be the place to go to get comment on expenses.

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There is no sign that any of these 50 MPs will be in Wales though we are aware of murmurings in the Bridgend constituency, where the local paper recently ran a two page story containing pictures and the price of the sort of furniture their Labour MP had bought with her allowances for her second home.

As yet there is no link to the article but here is one the Western Mail published on 21 May saying the same thing. Suggestions that this article will be republished in one form or another at monthly intervals up until the next General Election so as to give the impression that Labour are doing something about this scandal whilst the number of reselections can be counted on the fingers of one hand are, we are sure, wide of the mark.

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Today, we are all (elected and electors) challenged to reconsider what we want from our democracy. As Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats I must engage with my constituents, get beyond the understandable anger that fraud and abuse have created and find out what Welsh people really want, what they expect and hope for. It’s no easy task but now more than ever, we need to listen and to represent – on the doorstep, in our offices and in the Assembly Chamber.

And we need to do a better job of communicating the work that is done at local and national level by the Welsh Liberal Democrats. If we want to develop a lifelong relationship with communities, individuals, families and businesses we have to demonstrate a commitment to core values in our conduct, our voting records, our campaigns and governance.

It’s more important that we leave a doorstep or a meeting with a business having developed a real relationship, based on values, than offer solutions to a short term concern. Ideally, we can offer both but if we want to invest in a stronger party, a broader consensus and a firmer mandate to represent, then it’s honesty, transparency and Liberal Democratic values we need to show today and every day.

We need to show all of Wales that we are holding Government to account, scrutinising on their behalf, getting better value for their money and protecting principles Labour and Plaid have neglected. So let’s hope for more scrutiny, more publishing of records online and more public engagement in politics –and let’s thrive in that spotlight.

So much of the frustration felt regarding expenses stems from a void in communication – many people don’t see how hard we’re working, the impact we have at local and national level. It’s our job to fill that void, and tell people what we asked yesterday in the Assembly, or how we’ve consistently opposed top-up fees. We don’t need spin or smear – what we do is what matters and our actions illustrate our offer of liberal democratic values most vividly.

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