Member News
William Hague has said that reform in Parliament will have to go beyond simply improving the expenses system.
The shadow foreign secretary told the BBC that parliamentary reform would have to go "very deep".
He backed David Cameron's call to scrap the communications allowance and to reduce the number of MPs by 10 per cent.
And he expressed his "surprise" to learn the extent of some MPs' expenses claims.
"Like David Cameron, I have been appalled about some of the things that I have heard and that we have read about," he told the BBC.
"It is not remotely surprising that the public are extremely angry about it, at a time when they were already disillusioned with the political system.
"The way in which we deal with that is absolutely critical to putting this right for the future."
And turning to the question of the Speaker's position, Hague told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There certainly is a problem. Any MP has to acknowledge that.
"I'm not going to join in the criticism of the Speaker, who I think has a very difficult job to do. But clearly there is a problem among some members of Parliament about that. Of course we have to recognise that, but that is not a substitute for dealing with the wider issues.
"The public would be much more impressed if we showed we were dealing with all this now through total transparency and setting out to reduce the cost of politics and Parliament as a whole, improving its relevance to the country - these things are much more important than anything about who sits in the Speaker's chair."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd