---

Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

That is one of the key issues that we looked at. If Members go through the recommendations—I will run through a few of them in a moment—they will find that their primary motivation is to find ways of reducing the costs of bureaucracy for the taxpayer and to achieve better value for money. At the moment, there is a huge burden on Members because of the unnecessarily long time that it takes to navigate the expenses system, and that places a cost burden on our constituents—the taxpayers. It also takes Members, and their staff, away from serving their constituents and performing the functions that they were elected to perform. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) hit the nail on the head with his remarks, because at the forefront of our minds was the question, ““What recommendations can we make that will reduce the overall costs and ensure that the system is still accountable?””