James Barlow

I was planning to write about Recycling this weekend, in response to an excellent comment from reader Elisabeth, but circumstances require that I discuss a different subject.

Giles Chichester MEP has recently resigned as leader of the Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament, due to a breach of the parliamentary rules on handling his allowances. He used a company of which he was a director to provide services to himself in his role as an MEP. According to his press release:

"I have used my family company as a service provider to support my parliamentary work since I was elected to the European Parliament in 1994. The activities of the company have been openly logged with Companies House in the UK, and it has an official contract formally registered with the European Parliament. It has been my understanding that this arrangement has, at all times, been fully compatible with the parliamentary rules.

"Eighteen months ago, I received a letter from the Quaestors' office suggesting there might be a conflict of interest regarding the company.

"I replied to this letter setting out my belief that the arrangements were fully in compliance with the rules of Parliament. I received no response from the Parliament authorities."

I find this explanation unacceptable. Although I am absolutely certain that Mr Chichester acted in good faith and that there has been no misappropriation of funds, the mechanism he chose for receiving his - extremely generous - allowances was to say the least lacking in transparency. For me, the essence of Conservatism is to deal with public funds in a manner that is beyond reproach and open to public scrutiny. And for that reason, just as Mr Chichester's position as group leader was untenable, so his acceptability to represent the Conservative party for the office of MEP must be ruled out.

At the next meeting of the Bristol & South Gloucestershire Conservative Association, I will be proposing that we petition the membership on removing Giles Chichester from our party list for the South West Region seat in the European Parliament. Given that his position on the list was automatic, as the existing office holder, this works out well democratically as the remaining five people on the list were all selected by a ballot.

(More thoughts to follow on my dislike of closed list proportional representation and degressive proportionality. And I'll write something about the wretched EPP-ED group as well)

And just as I was putting my thoughts together on this topic, another misunderstanding over allowances by one of my fellow party members came to light.

A decade ago, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Caroline Spelman MP, used part of her Parliamentary allowance to pay her nanny's salary. Ms Spelman's contention is that her nanny did both secretarial and childcare work, and that this is all within the rules. Her statement to the press:

Speaking outside her home, Ms Spelman explained that when she became MP for Meriden she inherited a backlog of correspondence and work from the seat’s previous holder, Iain Mills, who had died unexpectedly.

To cope she hired Miss Haynes to work in the constituency office Ms Spelman had set up at her home in Solihull.

Ms Spelman said "(Tina) would deal with the secretarial side of things while the children where in school and after school provide child care for my kids.

As with Giles Chichester, I very much doubt that there has been any intentional wrong-doing, nor any misappropriation of funds. But nevertheless as Conservatives - in particular the national leadership of the party- we must be beyond reproach in handling tax payers money and representing the people. The moral high ground is at times rather barren and rocky, but that is the ground we seek to hold.

Therefore on this basis, I will also - at the next meeting of the Bristol & South Gloucestershire Conservative Association - be proposing that we write to the party leader, David Cameron, urging him to request Ms Spelman's resignation from the role of Chairman of the Conservative Party. Her reselection for the parliamentary seat of Meridien is of course a matter for their local association.

I view the entire system of Parliamentary allowances - European and UK - as irretrievably broken, and I'd like to get shot of the whole lot. Their purpose is supposed to be to assist Parliamentarians in representing their constituents, not to support the lifestyle aspirations of a political elite. I recently itemised the potential take of a UK Member of Parliament:

[MPs receive] a basic salary of £61,820. Ten percent of that salary can be invested in the world's best pension scheme, the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund. Parliamentarians also receive a staffing allowance of up to £90,854, Incidental Expenses Allowance of up to £22,193, up to £5,000 pounds of IT equipment, £2,916 of London weighting if they're in the Big Smoke, up to £24,006 of Additional Costs Allowance [a second home and the infamous "John Lewis" List], up to £10,400 for "communications" plus practically unlimited reimbursement for personal transport expenses and mileage, and up to 30 trips for WAGS and children. Have a look at The Green Book for the full story.

Ignoring the value of the pension (which is considerable) and the travel allowances (which are very nice indeed) - this is a total of £217,000.00 per annum. I have also not included the large chunk of cash MPs receive as "Winding Up" money if they lose their office at a general election

It's time to simplify this whole mess. Doing it for the European Parliament may be a tough proposition, but for the UK parliament we should boil all these allowances down to a single payment. I'd suggest £61,820 plus travel expenses as a good number. It's certainly much more than the average British wage of £28,589.60.

I've proposed as much at the blog of local MP Kerry McCarthy (Lab Bristol East). I think a desire to constrain unnecessary expenditure by MPs at a time of economic hardship for British voters is a good area for cross-party collaboration. My suggestion to Kerry was that we collaborate on an Early Day Motion to effect this change, to be called "The McCarthy Bill". Or perhaps it could be the "Williams Bill" or the "Primarolo Bill" or the "Naysmith Bill". I believe I shall ask around the local area to see if I can find a sponsor.

The great thing about blogging is that it provides a mechanism for learning new concepts and refining and clarifying ideas. Before sitting down to write a post bloggers - much like journalists - have to do a bit of research, and then string the ideas together in some sort of coherent narrative. But the real magic happens through comments, wherein readers can immediately and publicly critique a bloggers work and extend it in new directions.

That final step is unique to Internet - writing a letter to the paper doesn't offer the same speed of response, nor the opportunity for a third party to read the response next to the original article. It would be interesting to know how many physical "Letters to the Editor" are received by major publications in comparison to previous decades.

I've learnt a couple of things this week; about petitions and medical records.

Petitions

I wrote about a Petition delivered by Stephen Williams MP to Parliament. An anonymous comment directed me to a page offering official guidance on the presentation of petitions to the House of Commons. I had no idea such a process existed although in retrospect, when one considers that petitions are an ancient form of interaction between rulers (latterly government) and the people, it is obvious that formal procedures exist.

There are twenty seven separate paragraphs of guidance, of which the following gave me pause for thought:

3. A Petition should contain a clear request to the House which is within its power to grant.

Since we're not having a referendum on the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty, I wonder what policy areas are legitimate for petitioning. There are surprisingly few things that are within the power of the House of Commons to grant.

5. Every Petition must be respectful, decorous and temperate in its language.

Did this petition meet these guidelines?

23. The presenting Member rises and may make a brief statement as to whom the Petition is from, what it concerns (defined in S.O. No. 153 as the "material allegations"), and the number of signatures attached, and then reads out the prayer (the section beginning "Wherefore your Petitioner(s) pray that your honourable House ..." or "The Petitioner(s) therefore request(s) that the House of Commons ..." to the end). The Chair has interrupted Members attempting to make a speech rather than a short statement and has directed them to present the Petition forthwith and resume their seat (see HC Deb 2 November 1988 cols 1156-7). No other Member may speak on the presentation of a Petition, except to raise a point of order.

Interestingly, the manner of presentation by Stephen was technically in breech of this policy since he did not indicate the number of signatures attached. I've written to him through TheyWorkForYou.com to find out the final figure.

Those MPs sceptical of the European ideal might consider taking advantage of this to interrupt any future petitions on a point of order, referring to paragraph three given above.

25. After the Petition has been read, the Member brings the Petition directly from his or her place and drops it in the green bag hanging behind the Speaker's Chair.

I would guess that all these petitions end up in the National Archives, perhaps in the same files as the petitions of the Chartists, the Levellers' Large Petition (signed by a third of all Londoners) and the Quakers' Petition for the Abolition of Slavery. I've asked the communications team at the House for more information, and I think I might try to arrange a visit to Kew.

The preamble to the Levellers' Large Petition, delivered on 11th September 1648, seems strangely topical:

TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE THE COMMONS OF ENGLAND
in Parliament assembled.
The humble Petition of Thousands wel-affected persons inhabiting the City of London, Westminster, the Borough of Southwark Hamblets, and places adjacent.

Sheweth,

That although we are as earnestly desirous of a safe and well-grounded Peace, and that a final end were put to all the troubles and miseries of the Common-wealth, as any sort of men whatsoever : Yet considering upon what grounds we engaged on your Part in the late and present Wars, and how far (by our so doing) we apprehend our selves concerned, Give us leave (before you conclude as by the Treaty in hand) to aquaint you first with the ground and reason which induced us to aid you against the King and his Adherents. Secondly, What our Apprehensions are of this Treaty. Thirdly, What we expected from you, and do still most earnestly desire.

(Wait a minute...11th September! My god, it's all part of the conspiracy! Osama bin Laden was a Leveller! Somebody get Dan Brown on the phone; there's a book in this.)

The BBC also discussed petitions, specifically e-petitions, on a recent edition of the Poltics Show West, in relation to the huge online petition opposing the conversion of the Bristol-Bath cycle path into a Bus Rapid Transfer route. 

Medical Records

I also wrote about Google's development of a new service for storage of medical records, which is likely to be a lot cheaper than the comparable element of the NHS IT programme. I blithely made the statement "instead of your GP owning your records, you would own them". But of course, it's not as simple as that. An unexpected visit from the NHS Blog Doctor reveals the truth:

The actual physical paper content of the Lloyd Georges are owned by the Secretary of State for Health - the PCT these days. The intellectual property, i.e. the information therein may be owned by the GP in that it is the fruit of his labours, but the patient has rights and control over them. More difficult is the ownership of computerised notes. Patients are entitled to access them as of right (and quite right too) but it is far from clear who owns the intellectual property. The patient has the option to refuse to have them uploaded to the Spine, but few exercise that right. The various computer companies who provide the software - like EMIS - can access all the data on line.

(I think this was left by Dr Crippen, anyway. He said my post was "excellent" which I'm pretty chuffed about. From a blogger's perspective, this is comparable to having Paul McCartney say he thinks you've written a catchy song.)

I noticed the following contribution to a debate in Parliament yesterday, via TheyWorkForYou.com. Stephen Williams, MP for Bristol West delivered the following petition:

[The Petition d]eclares that despite ongoing human rights violations and the UK government's own export guidelines, the UK has consistently licensed exports to Israel for military equipment, thus providing material support for Israeli aggression, and sending a message of approval for its actions; further declares that the Israelis have declared Gaza a "hostile entity" within a "conflict short of war" and that the collective punishment of a civilian population is prohibited in international law.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to seek to end the siege on the Palestinians and to support Palestinian democracy by stopping arming Israel; reconsidering the UK's policy of refusing to provide aid to the Palestinian Authority following Hamas' election victory in January 2006 and pressing Israel to release all elected Palestinian parliamentarians, as well as other political prisoners; to censure the decision by the Israel cabinet to impose sanctions on supplies of electricity, fuel, and other basic goods and services to the civilian population of Gaza, to cease colluding with this act of State Terrorism against innocent people; and to work towards a just solution based on international law and an end to Israeli occupation.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

I happen to disagree with the underlying assumption that the Israelis are displaying aggression, rather than simply doing what any other sensible nation state would do when facing a bona fide terrorist threat from a neighbouring area.

I do find it odd, though, that as a resident of Bristol West I haven't heard about this petition before. At the Bristol Lib Dem's website, you can find news about all their petitions covering such diverse subjects as Climate Change, Homophobic Bullying, Knife Crime, Banksy, Buses, Cancer, the IMF and so on. And there's also the online poll at the Bristol West Lib Dem's site about state funding of political parties, now closed with 10 votes.

I wonder how many signatures Stephen got for his petition? I believe I shall ask.