Gisela Stuart MPWorking hard for Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton

House Magazine Diary - May 2009 // June 4th, 2009 // Speeches, Articles and Interviews

This has not so much been a case of a week being a long time in politics but a monumental car crash which had been coming for years playing itself out in slow motion.

We knew that our expenses would be published in July, but once the Daily Telegraph started releasing them bit by bit, I decide to get the data onto my website as soon as was possible.

At one level the problem is a simple one. We designed for ourselves a system of claiming allowances and expenses which was so out of touch with what the public accepts that even when we were “following the rules” most people were at best puzzled and at worst outraged.

It’s time to draw a line; and the way forward isn’t that complicated. London allowance for those in London; otherwise a second home which is rented and claims for basic bills and running costs. Payments against receipts and all claims to be published as they are made. But just like not all that long ago we all piled in vilifying the bankers without making distinctions, so it’s our turn now. All politicians are in the dog house and the scandal over allowances is now the trigger for wider dissatisfaction with politics.

People have lost confidence in politicians because we and Parliament in particular has lost confidence in itself. Hiving off responsibility to others is not good enough and doesn’t work anyway. For example governments of all parties have overruled “independent assessments” of pay for MP and ministers – something which has in no small part contributed to our current problems.

Enough of this. Note to myself: 1) get on with the day job, 2) day job is to represent your constituents at Westminster, 3) Parliament’s role is to hold the executive to account.

No votes on Thursday so I get to attend a Planning Committee site visit at the Moorpool Estate in Harborne. Built a hundred years ago, the estate could stand shoulder to shoulder with any garden city. No wonder the locals are up in arms about plans by developers which would ruin the character of the estate. A young woman gets up and gives an unscripted ten minutes speech with was coherent, passionate and extremely well informed. The densely packed hall breaks out in spontaneous applause and the chair has to admit that he’d never heard a better speech!

Friday starts with a team meeting. We discuss some of the more difficult constituency cases, sort out the diary and most importantly agree on a form of words for the website to accompany my expenses. A local journalist spends the day with me. She wants to do a piece on “just what does an MP do”.

It’s a fairly standard day; talks with Birmingham City Council about getting an international conference to the City, touching base with a local head teacher and discussions with the youth services. The visit to St Joseph’s Convent to present a donation is unusual, but great fun. They read the local papers eagerly and one of the residents aged 101 picks up his copy of the Birmingham Post every morning. Does that make him the oldest paper boy?

A meeting in Bartley Green the next day throws up problems with loan sharks and money lenders. They convince me that we should look at statutory maximum interest rates.

It’s a sunny bank holiday but I am not enjoying it. Politicians of all parties start the “my constitutional reforms are bigger than yours” game. The talk is of different electoral systems, right of recall, local primaries, capping donations, an elected second chamber and fixed terms for parliaments. David Cameron wants to be the firm and decisive party leader who ruthlessly axes MPs caught up in the expenses scandal and yet asks the voters to trust him that will hand back power once he’s got it. And how a fixed Parliament, which deprives the voters of the chance to kick out a government early, is more power to the people eludes me. This Parliament is in its final year and the argument against an early election is that having created the mess it’s our responsibility to sort it out. So let’s get on with it. Elect a new speaker and chose someone who can re-assert parliamentary authority.

“The power of the executive has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished” has echoed down centuries of British history and it lies at the core of what needs to be done today.

On Monday an article headed “Scandals distract UK” catches my eye in my inbox. “Brits are confronted with their most difficult-ever challenge for public finances apart from the First and Second World Wars – the Bank of England has been forced to cut interest rates to their lowest levels since 1694 – government deficit will soar to 12% of GDP this year” – and goes on to conclude that “facing a financial mountain, this is a bad time for watchdogs to be distracted by molehills”. Remember - It’s the economy stupid. People need jobs and they won’t forgive us if they think we’ve forgotten

Getting back to work on Tuesday comes as a relief. In the evening I and the new German Ambassador are guest speakers at a conference at Aston University. Times are changing. Whenever Germans and Brits got together to discuss foreign policy the unanswered question in the room used to be – and what do the French make of this? These days we wonder more about Poland. Afghanistan and our prospects of anything even vaguely representing success dominated the discussion over dinner. But there is a lighter moment when the Ambassador’s wife tells me about her journey down memory lane. She’d been an au-pair in my constituency in 1966 and they went back to look at the house.

North Korea is taking an ever more aggressive stance and Russia is reported to take precautions against a nuclear threat, but the top of news on Wednesday is our expenses. I am cheered by reading Nick St Aubyn’s article for the House Magazine. Over eight hundred years, twenty generations of his family have been elected to the House of Commons. He makes a funny, yet skilfully crafted case for open primaries. Maybe this is an idea I need to think about a bit more; the idea is growing on me. I’m less bothered about an elected Lords, but I do think that even an appointed Lords should be time limited.

But for the moment I’d better read up on some papers from Advantage West Midlands. I am taking part in a debate on the economic prospects of Birmingham. Ideas of freeing up local government borrowing to kick start regeneration are being floated, but I am not yet sure I fully understand what an Accelerated Development Zone using Tax Incremented Financing actually means in practice. Maybe I’ll be wiser by tonight; on the other hand it might just have been a half baked idea. Time will tell.

In the meantime I think it’s time to head for the greenhouse. Since 1997 I have had a “grow your own government” seed packet on my pin board…

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