MP..a full time job?

Cash for Comrades

It was MP versus MPs this morning. On the surface it was civil and polite but there was crackling resentment behind the exchanges.

In November 2007 Gordon Prentice and I raised the issue of ‘Cash for Comrades’ at the Public Administration Select Committee. There are £73 billion worth of contracts up for grabs to clean up the mess left behind by our last disastrous use of nuclear power. That’s before we start on the new disaster.

There were reports that two of our parliamentary Labour colleagues had taken jobs with firms bidding for the fat contracts. Iain McCartney was said to have a job with Fluor for £115,000 a year, Richard Caborn with Amec at £75,000.

This morning Richard Caborn appeared before the committee. He was in combative mood. He began with a storming defence of his engineering credentials. He was once ‘the apprentice of the year’ and he had engineered up and down the country ever since as boy and man. What’s more the firm that pays him the dosh is in his constituency. He has to work for his constituents.

I asked him if he thought an MP’s job is a fulltime one? He said it was. This took the wind out of his sails a bit. As he has Amec on his patch, I have E.A.D.S. Lifeforce and big firms that I promote as vigorously as I can. I said if one of them offered me a bung of seventy grand I would regard it as a corrupt practise.

I did not tell the committee but one local firm offered me a service that I would like but cannot afford. Had I accepted it I would have had to declare it and my ability to promote the company would be undermined.

Richard’s testimony will be studied with care. Promoting a constituency firm and constituency jobs does not need an additional income of more than an MP’s salary. The job of an MP is more than fulltime. Most of us regret that there are not 48 hours in every day so that we can do justice to the demands of our constituents.

My Newport West constituents would go berserk if I told them that I was taking a second job with a second salary but still staying on as their MP. They would certainly kick me out at the next election. Quite right too.

Naughty coppers

The more change, the more everything remains the same. This week we read that the  former Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys has been the subject of an adverse report on his conduct. A certain female was involved. The excellent Royce Gardener MBE (pictured) has sent me some fascinating stories on the way the police once behaved.

He has long been the Chairman of the Gwent Police Pensioners Association. Among the serious business in their publication to celebrate their 70th anniversary are these records of past disciplinary reports from many years ago: -

• PC X was found guilty of being on duty and found in a unit shop with a certain female with his lamp out.
• PC Y was found guilty whilst on duty of being in bed with a certain female with his boots on.
• PC Z was cautioned because after being ordered by the Superintendent to take a female to the station, took her home for the night and brought her back to the station in the morning.

That certain female had a very active life.

Thanks

In the past I have often jumped on them. Once I suggested that the Dragon's Eye TV programme should be renamed after another part of the dragon's anatomy because of the stuff they turned out.

Tonight's report by Bethan James was sensitive, newsworthy, intelligent and balanced. It did not exploit or over-dramatise the emotions of the family who have lost a son through drug use. Nor did they reach simplistic solutions.

The Home Secretary was praised this morning for her drugs ' policy by the Daily Mail. If that does not convince her that she is wrong, what will?

Comments

[Peter Murray]

Paul, I’ve lost count of the business conferences I have attended recently where the various audiences have been treated to lectures by government ministers, such as John Hutton, who have no business experience whatsoever. Clearly, conference organisers view the presence of a minister as a rubber stamp to the importance of their event or organisation. However, I can’t get passed the irony of businessmen and women, some of whom who have put millions into the coffers of UK plc, being lectured at by representatives of the government whose business experience extends to running constituency offices with a state funded grants (Digby Jones being a notable exception).

I wouldn’t be so fast to criticise those MPs who seek a second income. In fact, I would congratulate them. MPs are famous for being unemployable, especially after a long spell in the Commons, and I can understand why some feel the need to promote one of the few marketable qualities they have, namely their knowledge of the parliamentary process.

Insisting MPs operate in a cocoon, as if they had taken a holy order and must remain chaste from the corrupting influence of business is absurd. Intelligent, hard-working individuals with good judgement can serve two masters without having to compromise on time or principle.

If I was to criticise MPs with regards to their work ethic, I wouldn’t attack those taking on extra responsibilities in the private sector. Rather, I’d question those backbenchers who are, for want of a better word, lazy. I remember asking a member, who will remain nameless, why he was staying on in office, as it was clear he had lost all appetite for the job. His response was that two more parliaments would bring his pension up to a sufficient level that would allow him to retire.

You are clearly a hard working MP, and your blog is an example of how you are prepared to do more than most, but currently there is no “minimum service guarantees” constituents can expect from their MPs. Again from personal experience, I have left countless messages on the crackly answer machines of MPs, only to discover they employ a full staff and have maxed out their office allowance. I wonder if your committee have ever consider proposing some minimum standards constituents should expect from their MPs, such as a 9 to 5.30 manned office. Or perhaps you would consider a system whereby MPs are rewarded in a similar way to GPs – i.e. on the number of people who attend their surgeries?

[Paul Flynn]

Dear Peter,

Thanks for your fascinating letter. There are many points in it with which I would agree.

It's attractive idea to pay MPs by results. But such is the variation of tasks that MPs adopt, it would be impossible to devise a fair system. In a book I wrote in 1997, I attempted to define backbench MPs types by describing their roles. I got to 34 different specialities before I gave up. All the tasks are worthy and suit the talents of the individuals.

I understand how you must must feel about ministers lecturing you. They lecture us too about jobs they have been in a few weeks on subjects on which some MPs understand intimately. There is already a body which encourages MPs to work in companies to gain commercial knowledge. It's thriving and 100s of MPs have been involved working a few days a month for two years in commercial companies. It is done under the auspices of parliament and no additional pay is involved.

MPs who have lost their appetite for the jobs are likely to be deselected by their parties. Two Labour ones have been deselected recently. Labour Parties keep us on our toes and will tell MPs when it's time to go.

You have had bad luck with the MPs you know. Name them.

[Peter]

I hope you will forgive me writing to you. I am not a constituent, but I have heard you talk with much sense about drugs policy in the past. I am a criminal barrister and see a good deal of the harm done in this area over decades. Sadly, it is the law which does most of it.

When cannabis was lowered from class B to class C, it was the first recognition of some sense in this area for as long as I can remember and cannabis use has declined since the move – I suspect it became that little bit less glamorous. You will remember that the rather bizarre decision also taken at that time was to increase all class C penalties (save for possession) to those of Class B. I never knew what kind of evidence that was based on, but I suspect most people who noticed (probably only politicians, policemen and lawyers) did not want to be churlish when a rare shaft of light had been seen. In practice of course it meant that the only difference apart from “message” was that possession attracted 2 years instead of 5 – not that anyone goes inside for more than a matter of weeks or months (and then in exceptionally rare cases) or ever did much for simple possession, so that this particular change will make no practical difference other than to the power of arrest.

The young are not stupid. They know what this is all about and they know the advisory body is against it. It will carry no message whatsoever except one about politicians and not a very respectful one particularly about a generation of politicians born in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Since this measure will of course pass both Houses whence presumably the press and police will wait a year or two before making speeches or writing articles on liberalisation as many did before the downgrading exercise, such as it was, could the penalties on class C drugs at least be restored to their old position? They were only upped in reality to accommodate the cannabis inclusion and it does make a nonsense of sentencing law.

I would like some thinking outside the box on drug policy but doubt it will ever come. This is not to deny that the new powerful skunk is potentially more hazardous (though my entire career has seen much more harm from alcohol than any class B drug) to a vulnerable section of people and if we carry on with this daft system of classification may justify a ‘B’ grading. This has never been a problem in the past. Some cannabis genus drugs are class A where the THC is particularly pure. It does not require all cannabis to be upgraded.

Anyway, crying in the wilderness I know, but I thought I would share my thoughts and frustrations for once.

[Paul Flynn]

Many thanks Peter. You are not crying in the wilderness. You are speaking for the evidence.

That's an entirely fair suggestion that Class C penalties revert to what they were before Blunkett had his panic attack.

It's hard to understand how intelligent people can go along with this. that includes the entire cabinet. I had a meal with one of them this week. His mind is impenetrable on this.

There may be a chance of exposing a bit of the truth as the measure goes through parliament.

My energies now are devoted to advancing the new European Convention and the Rome Declartion. They are as far as we can reasonably expect to progress at the moment.