Letter: MP Davies's concern about fairness of expenses exercise - 05/11/09
Bourne MP Quentin Davies has sent a letter to Sir Thomas Legg, the auditor of Commons' expenses, about his own expenses.
Mr Davies has copied his letter to The Local.
It says:
"Thank you for your letter dated October 12 about my expenses claims.
You say that your findings are provisional and that you are, "open to representations about their accuracy and fairness." I have no quarrel with the accuracy of your figures for my claims, but I am certainly concerned about the fairness of this exercise.
In my case, you ask me to repay 658, being the excess (of around 10%) in my cleaning bills over the maximum of 2,000 per annum which I was, you state, entitled to claim. This "excess" arises over three years (I claimed less than this limit during the fourth year in question but that is not taken into account).
The trouble with the cleaning limit of 2,000 is that the limit was unknown and unheard of at the time. It is entirely arbitrary and, more importantly, retrospective. It is as if I were now to be fined for driving at 40mph on a road when that was the prevailing speed limit, on the ground that someone has subsequently decided that the limit should have been 30 mph all along.
Surely no system can have legitimacy or can even function if those operating under it are not entitled to believe that if they act in good faith in accordance with the current rules they cannot subsequently be found to have acted wrongly? And once retrospectivity is accepted, there is no end to the uncertainty created. Who shall say that some subsequent authority might not overrule or supersede your own decision? Or do you argue that your right to resort to retrospectivity is unique and therefore no precedent can be created?
For all these reasons, I find your procedure anomalous and unjust. Indeed, if a constituent had come to me with an equivalent demand for repayment of a sum entirely correctly claimed from an employer in the past, I would have had no hesitation in taking the most vigorous action possible to support him on her in resisting that demand.
Nevertheless, I recognise, with very considerable shock and sadness, that there have been serious abuses of the Parliamentary Allowances system. Though I - and I am sure the majority of members - never knew of them, let along condoned or participated in them, we are collectively responsible for what happens in Parliament. We could at least in theory have demanded earlier investigations or checks. You are tempting by catharsis to purge Parliament of the stain of these scandals. It may be that you conclude that fairness and rationality must both be sacrificed to achieve this aim. If that is so, though I am very reluctant to act in breach of such fundamental and constant principles, I shall not stand in your way.
Accordingly, if you deem it necessary, I will pay (but not "pay back", since the money was never improperly received) the sum of 658 to the fees office.
Quentin Davies
House of Commons,
London"
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Friday 10 February 2012
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