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Legislative Process

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the start of my speech, he would know that I am addressing the way in which the media try to portray this House as a House of slackers that does not pull its weight. I accept that we could organise our parliamentary calendar more effectively. If education authorities move to six-week terms, we will find it difficult to enable, for example, hon. Members from Scotland to spend any time at all in the summer with their families. I am sure that the House authorities, the House of Commons Commission and Mr. Speaker will continue to wrestle with that problem. Nevertheless, this British House of Commons sits more often and for longer sittings than almost any other comparable Chamber. Robin Cook was wrong about what the media say about us. The principle of subcontracting how we organise the work of the British House of Commons to the editors of tabloid newspapers is very dangerous, at least until such time as we can elect the editors of British tabloid newspapers and hold them to account. We can never win that argument, so we should not even engage with it. We should do what is right with regard to the duties that we have in this place and the way in which we can best represent our constituents. Slightly cruelly, I took my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) to task about his use of the term ““expenses””, because we run our constituency offices with allowances. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has said that the word ““recess”” is hardly known outside this place, but in tabloid world the recess is a long summer holiday. As hon. Members have said, we gained no favours with the editors of our tabloid newspapers when we came back in September. I will not name the newspaper concerned, because I do not read it—suffice it to say that on 15 January 1934 its front-page headline was ““Hurrah for the Blackshirts””—but I said to one of its journalists, ““If you think the recess is a holiday for Members of Parliament, I’ll make you a deal. Take a week out of your family holiday and come with me to my advice surgeries, which often end at 10 o’clock at night, on the roughest and toughest estate in my constituency. Come and visit the schools; come and do the casework with me; come and pay home visits.”” Like most hon. Members, I carry out home visits. I continued, ““At the end of 50 hours or perhaps 55 hours, which is considerably fewer hours than we put in when the House is sitting, you tell me whether that is a holiday.”” Funnily enough, the journalist did not want to play. We must stand up for our work here and our work in our constituencies. If we concede the argument that we must come back in September for public relations reasons, we will not be doing the job that we were sent here to do. I do not have outside business interests or a private income; I am a full-time Member of Parliament. I do not have access to resources to top up my budget to run my constituency office. I do not receive an additional allowance for being an MP in a high-cost area such as Reading. I do not receive additional London allowances, but I have to pay London wages in order to get quality staff, which I have: Viki, Ann, Cara and Alex put in an inordinate amount of time and are not paid enough money. As a trade unionist and someone who has argued for justice in the workplace, I find it embarrassing that the allowances do not allow me to pay increments to reward loyalty. I can just about afford to give my staff an increase equal to inflation, but in many other employment scenarios, one would be able to pay increments to reward long service. Two years ago, when I received death threats from the British National party, I had to install security measures at my office. I got the princely sum of £1,500 towards putting in shutters and panic alarms. The rest—nearly £4,000—I had to find from my own pocket. I am not making a big deal about it: my salary doubled when I came to work in this place, as housing associations did not pay a lot of money. Nevertheless, I have not had the resources to pay the extra money needed to do some of what I would like to do so as to do right by my staff or constituents. I am sure that I could go out there and get additional employment, as many Members do. Members who are going to vote against the communications allowance, which will be useful to many like me, should reflect on whether it is morally right for them to be claiming their full parliamentary allowance while raking in income from elsewhere during time in the working week that is taken away from representing their constituents and doing their duties. I have not cross-referenced the way in which Members intend to vote or what they have said with their declarations in the Register of Members’ Interests, but that is a point worth putting on the record.