By Andrew Evans - 5th February 2010
The majority of Ulster’s 17 MPs will have their salaries reduced by 40 per cent, after peers agreed on Wednesday to stop them drawing a second salary as members of the Stormont assembly. But they will still be able to claim expenses as MLAs.
The change, in the Northern Ireland Assembly Members Bill, will affect eight Democratic Unionists and two SDLP members. But Sinn Fein’s five MPs will probably be exempt because they do not take their Westminster seats.
Those affected are: first minister Peter Robinson and DUP colleagues Gregory Campbell, Nigel Dodds, Jeffrey Donaldson, William McCrea, Ian Paisley, David Simpson and Sammy Wilson; and the SDLP’s Mark Durkan and Alastair McDonnell.
The new rule, which prevents a member drawing an MLA’s salary of £43,101 on top of an MP’s salary of £64,766, will not apply to MLAs Lord Morrow (DUP) and Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP) because peers do not receive a parliamentary salary.
It is not yet known how many of the MPs affected are planning to defend their Westminster seats at the forthcoming general election. The new rule would also apply to the province’s three Euro-MPs, none of whom are currently MLAs.
The government amendment, agreed without a vote at the bill’s report stage on Wednesday, follows cross-party demands for Ulster MPs to lose their Stormont pay and allowances (LG, January 18).
Lords leader Baroness Royall said it would mean politicians were “unable to benefit financially purely as a result of being elected to two legislatures”. She hoped it would be a “catalyst” for them to choose which constituency they wanted to serve.
Lord Glentoran, for Tories, said: “The problems inherent in such a doubling up of roles are well known. Far too little new political talent comes out of Northern Ireland because the seats are already occupied.
“And, regardless how dedicated they might be, the positions demand simply too much to be combined in one person. All parties agree that the practice should come to an end.”
Lord Smith of Clifton, for Lib Dems, noted that the change “may be of only academic interest” if talks about the devolution of policing and justice failed and the assembly was suspended.
“It is ironic that we are discussing ‘double jobbing’ when the MLAs are performing so badly at single jobbing and are not getting on with settling their outstanding differences,” he added.
Lord Morrow, DUP chief whip at Stormont (pictured), said: “We needed the experience of parliamentarians from the House of Commons to give guidance in the early years of the Northern Ireland Assembly.” But he accepted the amendment.
Former Commons Speaker Lord Martin of Springburn (Ind), while supporting the “very sensible” change, pointed out that having MPs who were also MLAs had been “beneficial” to the Commons.
Lady Adams is told to pay back £5,000
Baroness Adams of Craigielea (L), the former Paisley North MP Irene Adams, was asked on Thursday to repay £5,005 to the House of Commons for “overpayments” of mortgage interest and cleaning costs.
The Members’ Estimate Committee accepted Sir Thomas Legg’s decision – upheld on appeal – that Lady Adams (below) had wrongly claimed £4,110 in mortgage interest payments in 2004/5 and had exceeded the (retrospective) limit on cleaning costs by £895.
Lady Adams, who objected to the retrospective limit, had told reviewer Sir Paul Kennedy that she had not kept a copy of the Northern Rock mortgage statements that she had supplied to the Commons fees office.
Six other peers, among them business secretary Lord Mandelson, have already repaid amounts overclaimed in Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) during their time as MPs. A seventh, Labour ex-minister Baroness Quin, successfully appealed.
Labour former education secretary Baroness Morris of Yardley repaid £6,090.20, which she had claimed for an upgrade to the boiler/cylinder in her second home shortly before standing down as an MP and for service charges.
Former health secretary Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (C) repaid £2,524.61 for mortgage interest; Lord Bilston (L), the former MP Dennis Turner repaid £282.66 for mortgage interest; Lord Trimble (C) repaid £805 for Athenaeum Club subscriptions; Lord Mandelson repaid £800 for gardening costs; and Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) repaid £209.58 for council tax.
Lady Quin had initially been asked to repay £1,504 claimed for replacement bathroom equipment, with the work done a few days before she stood down as an MP. But Sir Paul accepted there were “special reasons” and allowed her appeal.
Twenty-one other peers had their Commons expenses claims examined by Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry. Two – Lord Mawhinney (C) and Lord Soley (L) – had not claimed the ACA and, in the other 19 cases, the review raised “no issues”.
Meanwhile government moves to ban ‘non-doms’ from sitting in either House of Parliament (LG, January 11) were approved by the Commons on Monday without a vote, during committee stage of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill.
And prime minister Gordon Brown, in a speech on Tuesday at the Royal Society of Arts, said the “key parts of a draft bill” for a democratically accountable House of Lords would be published “in the next few weeks”.
Assisted dying for terminally ill adults
So many peers put their names down to speak in Lord Warner’s debate on assisted dying for terminally ill adults that they literally had just a minute to put their case.
Wednesday’s grand committee debate was time limited to one hour, with 10 minutes allowed to the Labour former health minister to open the debate and 12 minutes for junior justice minister Lord Bach to respond.
The normal rules would have allowed 10 minutes to opposition spokesmen Lord McColl of Dulwich (C) and Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD). But, with 21 backbenchers down to speak, they too were limited to a minute.
Some peers took longer and others commendably took less time, but 23 speeches were delivered in just 32 minutes. The shortest speech, comprising just 135 words in the official report, was that of Baroness Warnock. The longest was 349 words.
The attempt by Lord Warner (right) to delay committee stage of the Personal Care at Home Bill (LG, February 1) was rejected on Monday by 105 votes to 23. His supporters included two former cabinet secretaries and four other Labour rebels.
Labour former lord chancellor Lord Irvine of Lairg, who has spoken only once in the chamber since leaving the government in 2003, is hoping to open a debate on the Freedom of Information Act.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd