Sorry Laurie but I think you’ve got this one wrong. The day working class women are given state funding to employ nannies I’ll agree with your defence of Spelman, but as things stand at the moment I’m not about to advocate state funded nannies for the privileged while the rest of us have to make do with oversubscribed local authority nurseries and whatever SureStart have got on offer. Spelman was earning more than £60 grand a year when she used her parliamentary expenses to pay for a nanny, so she could well afford to fund it herself.

If a woman on benefits was caught playing the system like this, and misusing her allowances, she’d be facing a prison sentence now, but no doubt all Spelman will face is a slap on the wrist and a plea to be more careful in future. It’s yet another example of one rule for the ruling classes and another rule for the rest of us.

Laurie – “Or is the issue simply that childcare isn’t seen as an important part of a politician’s expenses, particularly if that politician is female?”

Would you be equally defensive if it had been a male MP employing a nanny at the public’s expense? I think you’re falling into the trap here of assuming that childcare is a woman’s responsibility………

Of course I agree that there should be top quality childcare available for all, but I think you’re wrong to use Spelman as a test case.

I agree that it’s in a different ballpark to the Chichester and Dover scandals, but not that it should be condoned.

MPs are paid over £60,000 a year – that’s nearly 3 times the national average wage – plus all the extra perks they get (second homes et al), and she still felt the need to pay her nanny out of expenses, instead of out of her pocket like most other working women?

I see I’ve just agreed with Cath Elliott – that must be a first

I also don’t find myself agreeing with Cath Elliott on a lot of things, but anyone who suggests that expenses (funded by the taxpayer) should be used to pay nannies is nuts. Expenses are there to cover costs incurred by MPs carrying out their parliamentary duties in the same way that business covers the cost of their employees carrying out official business. The line in the sand is a very clear and precise one and should never ever be crossed by an MP or anyone else for that matter.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

The above plus one. If everyone can claim childcare costs as a business expense (or even get them full allowable for tax relief) then fine for MPs too. Can’t see it happening any day soon.

I’m with Cath too. Sorry Laurie.

What’s wrong with using expenses to pay for a nanny? Exactly the same as me signing a cheque on the company account for more than £100 without prior authorisation. Per se, there is nothing wrong with it. However, it is a prima facie breach of the rules; I’m not allowed to do so without approval and Ms Spellman, if I understand the current rules, isn’t either. It is not what it was spent on so much as how it was spent. If that’s not what the expenses are for, it doesn’t matter whether the breach was on a nanny or a fleet of armed budgerigars.

There is also the matter of how much secretarial work the person in question did; Ms Spellman was done no favours with the confusion at the beginning. It’s not unreasonable to ask, if this person was employed as a secretary, why she was doing any other work.

xD.

Bucking convention, I think I’m with Laurie on this. MPs expenses are not necessarily like our expenses. How many people can honestly say they get expenses for maintaining a second home in the first place? There was no outcry about how Tony Blair on his salary was paying his bills with expenses, and it seems as though the greatest response to the tudor cladding situation was a guffaw of hilarious disbelief. If anything I’d say the use of the expenses for a nanny is one of the more responsible uses of the expenses system as it stands.

The question is what the expenses are there for, and as far as I can see they have become a fund for MPs to make their lives easier in whatever way while they carry out their parliamentary duties. There are no doubt countless other things to direct our indignation at that deserve it more than a mother ensuring her child is cared for while she’s doing her job. Now that isn’t to say that I think it’s right that she can spend her expenses on that given her salary, but that’s because I believe the entire expenses system is one that is open to abuse and is a salary by proxy (and certainly would be if recent suggestions see approval). Under the current system though? No problem for me.

Seems more like left-leaning bloggers seizing on a rare recent opportunity to lay in to the Tories…trouble is that by doing so all it makes people like myself think is that it’s not as if Labour (and potentially even Lib Dem when the expenses list is published) have exactly acted any better when you look at it. In particular, on this case, I’d much rather money was spent on nannies than shopping trips and tudor cladding.

Lee: Right-leaning bloggers (including Guido, LFaT and myself) are also expressing their anger at the misuse of public money by MPs of any stripe.

Don’t make it into a party political thing because it isn’t.

Question: There is a wide difference in why specifically Tory bloggers are expressing anger and it is solely down to the fact that they know they can see the finish line for a Tory government, and can’t believe that their MPs are doing anything that slightly allows their party to get bogged down by sleaze allegations again…which is precisely what the left-leaning bloggers are taking the opportunity to do.

It doesn’t change the fact that all parties have been as bad as each other on this issue

do we have consensus? This must be a first!

Anyway, if Spelman was working from home what did she need a nanny for exactly? why not go the whole hog and claim for a full entourage including tutor, masseur, personal trainer, chef, chauffeur, chiropodist and a croquet lawn keeper as well – these are all almost essential for cabinet members, why not also for all MPs? Or was it because she thought she could get away with this one…

I want a croquet lawn keeper!

First, obtain croquet lawn…

Honest question here, why are we picking on this one individual when it is clearly the system that is the problem?

I would certainly support a tax break for working families to pay for childcare. I don’t think it is appropriate as a business expense.

I’m sorry Laurie, but I agree with Letters From A Tory and others on this one. When taxpayers start paying for childcare for everyone else, then this will be perfectly acceptable. Until then no one- male or female- who is in the public eye should use taxpayer’s money for childcare or anything else unofficial.

Lee, is it picking on one person, or is it that this is the most borderline case to be revealed from the paperwork released under the FoI request which therefore best serves to highlight the lines of acceptability in making claims for parliamentary expenses?

It’s probably a fair question to ask the reasons why certain MPs came under the spotlight while others haven’t, but my guess is that the FoI campaigners picked to investigate the low-hanging fruit first.

It does seem that the nanny was empoyed to do some secretarial work but in my view, that should mean only a portion of her cost should be claimed against Ms Spelman’s expenses. Not the bit spent on looking after children.

I agree with Cath that by suggesting it’s OK for Caroline Spelman to claim for a nany reenforces the idea that looking after children is, when push come to shove, the responsibility of a woman. It is not.

However, I have long thought that the cost of childcare could be tax deductable as it is an expense of working and can put women or low income families in the poverty trap for even longer.

Of course, it could also be a thin end of a wedge! I don’t have children but used to have a dog and I used to employ a dog sitter to come in once a day and walk him when I was at work, or stay overnight if I was away for work…that was clearly an expense of working for me!!! Tax deductable dog walking anybody???

Plus, thomas, have you ever tried working whilst looking after children.?

Going back a bit to 4 – “Expenses are there to cover costs incurred by MPs carrying out their parliamentary duties in the same way that business covers the cost of their employees carrying out official business.”

Surely, though, childcare is a cost incurred for some MPs carrying out their parliamentary duties? They work fairly unpredictable hours, and if they have a constituency outside of London may well be away from their children for more than half the week. The children can’t move away from the constituency home because of school, and yet the MP has to for their work. If the MP’s partner has a similarly time-consuming job, or perhaps more importantly if they’re a single parent, then childcare becomes a necessary expense bought about by the nature of the job.

That said, I agree with the comments that MPs shouldn’t be allowed to claim childcare off the state without other parents receiving similar support. But then again, I’d broadly be in favour of the state providing daycare/childcare for infants so that parents (again, especially single parents) could get out to work and support themselves…

I’d broadly be in favour of the state providing daycare/childcare for infants so that parents (again, especially single parents) could get out to work and support themselves…

And so would I. Unfortunately it doesn’t happen…

thomas: I think it’s ludicrous that we’ve simply laughed off the idea that expenses are reasonable to be spent on adding mock tudor frontage to a house and to be spent on new kitchens as if that is part of parliamentary duties, yet we’re for some reason incensed at money being used to pay for a nanny. Why is it that it is more outrageous that a woman with a child in work uses her expenses to ensure that child is cared for than for a number of MPs to use the money to make house improvements that are completely independent of their ability to work in parliament?

I also must say a lot of the comments on this seem vindictively jealous. “We don’t get it so why should she?” seems to be the reasoning for a lot of people’s thoughts. Surely it’s more productive to use this as a platform for greater funding of childcare from the public purse rather than to expel this energy of how “wrong” it is and essentially cement no state benefits for that sort of childcare as the norm? Seems really counter productive to me.

“How many people can honestly say they get expenses for maintaining a second home in the first place?”

I think most people who are required to work hundreds of miles from home and be available at unusual times are given one form of help or another with maintaining a second home close to the place of work.

However, those same people are responsible for making and paying for suitable childcare arrangements. If they can’t afford childcare to cover their working responsibilities then, in the real world, they have to find another job or stop working.

That’s, to an extent, undesirable and, given that children are essential to the survival of our species as well as our economy (in a way which dogs plainly aren’t), I think it’s high time childcare expenses were completely tax deductable.

The system of MPs’ allowances isn’t at fault here, as she was advised by the Chief Whip that the arrangement was not acceptable and she stopped it – if it weren’t for the clamour to expose MPs’ expenses we’d know nothing.

Rather than this being a partisan issue I see it as being a simple case of an MP being caught, retrospectively, with her hand in the till.

Lee, I don’t think it is a question on a relative scale of what is more or less acceptable, this is a straight question of what is and is not acceptable, since we are dealing which regulations that have to be set, scrutinised and enforced.

As it is the current regulations are clear and enforcement should be forthcoming if it isn’t already underway. You can start making exemptions for rules on the basis that a parking ticket is less bad than murder – that’s ridiculous!

Jo, I don’t have children of my own so I can say I have that insight, but I did think the advantage of working from home is that it provides the flexibility to fit work around other responsibilities, so if childcare and home-based work are incompatible it begs the question of why anyone does it (and I have several friends who do so for precisely those reasons).

I’m not saying that one should be forgiven, I’m asking why it is we’re picking on this issue when there have been weeks if not months of issues to pick on? If you’re all so against this Tory MP having done it, then why weren’t you all blogging about Tony paying for a new kitchen? Do new kitchen’s really fall within the remit of “maintaining” a second home? I don’t think it does, if the kitchen works then it doesn’t need expenses paid in to replacing it. Like you say, normal people would have to go find another job if they just needlessly wanted to make their kitchen better but couldn’t afford it.

But we’re not and never have really blogged about that have we? So again, what makes this particular issue so special given it is “the parking ticket” level offense?

One issue is that instead of saying “sorry, I fiddled my expenses”, Spelman seems to be trying to explain it away by lying.

We need politicians who at least own up to mistakes when they get caught out..

Sorry, how many politicians have exactly come out and said they made a mistake over these expenses? To my mind I’ve not seen a single MP apologise over how they’ve used public money.

It’s a trivial instance of corruption – there’s not much more to say. It should neither be defended nor dwelt upon. Let Parliament deal with her as they see fit…

Well, didn’t Derek Conway admit he screwed up. Though, the evidence was rather overwhelming.

Funnily enough, Iain Dale was then trying to stick up for Conway too. Maybe that’s a poisoned chalice.

I’m a bit torn on this. I see Laurie’s point, and I’m sympathetic to it. Though I think Cath’s point stands too.

Maybe Jo Christie-Smith’s idea (about tax breaks, not paying for dog carers) is the best way. Jo – the difference would be that I think I’d enjoy looking after a dog. I’d hate looking after a baby.

I mostly agree with Cath but I take some exception to “I think you’re falling into the trap here of assuming that childcare is a woman’s responsibility…”
Maternity leave is a little longer than paternity leave and that heavily supports the notion that women are responsible for childcare. It’s not a trap to concur with the rules that already exist in society, it’s quite a practical response. That doesn’t make it acceptable for any MP to have an advantage that no one else has but Spelman lives in the same UK as the rest of us with the same disadvantages and women are expected to carry more parental responsibilities than men.

“To my mind I’ve not seen a single MP apologise over how they’ve used public money”

Presumably they don’t want to resign when the press prints article after article about their apology.