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Communications Allowance

May I start by giving my condolences to the family of Michael Foot? He was a distinguished Member of Parliament and I am sure that all our thoughts are with his family today. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) on securing the debate, which ostensibly is about the communications allowance, but, as we have heard, has ranged into various other areas. It is worth recapping why the communications allowance was introduced in the first place. The then Leader of the House, who is now Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, said it was""to assist with the important task of improving the engagement of the House with the public"" in part due to""the extraordinary increase in constituency demands and expectations"—[Official Report, 1 November 2006; Vol. 451, c. 301.]" on MPs. However, the position was best summed up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), the then shadow Leader of the House, when she said that the allowance""will give an enormous taxpayer-funded advantage to sitting Members of Parliament".—[Official Report, 28 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1524.]" Put bluntly, the allowance was an opportunity for sitting MPs to boost their profile using public funds. If every Member used his or her communication allowance, the cost to the taxpayer of that incumbency benefit would be £6.5 million a year, or some £30 million during the lifetime of a Parliament. However, it was not just the Conservatives who opposed the communications allowance. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said:""It will be an exercise in shameless self-promotion. It will be used to tell people how wonderful we are, and that will be paid for by our constituents."—[Official Report, 28 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1522.]" And the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said it would be "thinly disguised party propaganda" and "vanity publishing." As we have heard, Sir Christopher Kelly and Sir Ian Kennedy, the chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, have both said that they are against the communications allowance. I, for one, am happy about that.