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Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, which gives me the opportunity to say that there is nothing wrong with the staff who work for IPSA, most of whom are courteous and very helpful. They do all they can to try to resolve some of the difficulties and issues that confront us and our staff day in, day out. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the problem is the mind-numbing bureaucracy of the thing. I do not want my staff sitting there on the phone to IPSA Towers. I do not want them wading through the quadruplicate reconciliations that are required. I want them to work to help my constituents; that is what they are there to do. Why are they wasting their precious time, which should be spent on my constituents, on that mind-numbing useless bureaucracy? It is time that we addressed that question properly. The Scottish system and IPSA have one thing in common—one that we all want to see: transparency. That is what it should be about; transparency is the key to the way forward. The system used by the Scottish Parliament is even better, because receipts are put on each MSP's website and are available at the click of a mouse, so we achieve transparency without the massive difficulties caused by the bureaucracy of filling in all those forms. IPSA has had a chance to try to resolve those issues. Unfortunately, I missed the debate secured by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) before Christmas. I do not think that I have yet congratulated him on securing this debate, and on his diligence in pursuing the issue. After the first debate, IPSA was charged with the task of getting some of those difficulties in order. There have been some improvements, which we are all prepared to welcome, but the culture and the institution are still very much in place. There has not been a cultural shift in the way in which IPSA deals with MPs' expenses, so we are right to try to pursue the issue along the lines that the hon. Gentleman was prepared to suggest. Let us see if we can look at the 2009 Act again to try to get something different. We do not need to look too far afield, although I would be fascinated to learn about other international examples. We need look only 500 miles up the road to find a system that functions perfectly well, supported by those whom it serves and by the public, and without any issue or interest from the press whatsoever. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; we just need to strap a Caledonian one on to the House and get on with it. That is what we should do now, as we have an opportunity to try to resolve this. When the issue of expenses came before the House a couple of years ago, we strongly suggested that people should take a look at the Scottish system. That proposal was rejected in favour of IPSA, and the House probably realises that it made a dramatic and drastic mistake in going down that route—but there is still time to try to achieve a change. Let us not do something radically different. Let us just do something that works, and something works just up the road.