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Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

I want to paint a picture of two different parliamentary expenses schemes. One is bureaucratic, difficult to understand and administer, expensive to run and universally loathed by those whom it seeks to serve. The other is relatively inexpensive, easy to understand and universally accepted by those whom it seeks to serve. It might surprise some to know that both those schemes currently exist in the UK. The first is our good friend IPSA, and the second is the scheme that operates in Scotland without fuss, issues or any difficulty whatever. A year on from IPSA's creation, we are here again discussing its many and manifest failures, while the system in Scotland works without any issues or difficulty. No one cares to hear about it, and even the press are bored with it. They lost interest in the tea and biscuits stories years ago and they have gone on to other things, but it was not always like that in Scotland. In the early days of the Scottish Parliament there were a number of alarming stories, but nothing on the scale of what happened in this House. Initially, the Scottish Parliament more or less copied in full the parliamentary scheme from this place, but then there were difficulties, so it patiently, constructively and conscientiously fashioned a new system, which has worked. That system has the support of MSPs and the public, who know it is fair and transparent, and the press no longer have any particular interest in it. One way of illustrating the difference between the two systems is by looking at them through the eyes of the staff who have the misery of dealing with them on our behalf. I share an office with a Member of the Scottish Parliament. We share staff and our office manager looks after our office issues for us jointly, so she is responsible for paying all the bills and making sure that all the offices work effectively. When she does the expenses work for the MSP, it is over in minutes: the direct debit for office supplies—done; a few receipts for the travel required—finished. But then we almost hear her groan of anguish when it is time to turn to the MP's expenses. With a heavy heart, she draws down the IPSA website again and the hours of misery start. Is it the four hours to be spent on the travel reconciliations for last month, or the trying to sit through the quadruplicate reconciliation that IPSA requires for travel that causes the misery? Is it the endless phone calls to IPSA Towers, trying to understand and decipher the new, panicky rewrite of some of the rules? Or is it the stress of possibly getting a claim wrong—of something going into the wrong column or category and the claim being returned or, worse, refused and opened up for the ritual press humiliation that comes when those expenses are published every two months?