http://www.fecra.org.uk/

When MPs leave office they are entitled to redundancy pay in the form of a resettlement grant. Unlike most redundancy arrangements, the grant is paid to all MPs leaving Parliament at dissolution, including those who go voluntarily for retirement or other reasons. We recommend that, starting immediately after the next election, only those whose departure is involuntary should receive the grant. MPs who stand down voluntarily should instead receive an additional eight weeks’ pay to assist with the transition and to cover the time they spend on bringing their parliamentary work to a close.

Recommendation 30 summarises the above. Recommendation 31 states: “The resettlement grant should be paid at a rate of one month’s salary for each year of service as an MP up to a maximum of nine months’ salary, as proposed by the SSRB (Senior Salaries Review Board)”.

The current system is ageist (the amount paid varies depending on the age of the MP, and on the number of years served; the scheme can pay up to a year’s salary to an MP who loses an election which I feel is not right).

I think the current system is wrong, it is far too generous and inequitable. The nature of the role of an MP is that every-time there is a general election MPs know they may be booted out of office by their electorate. Individuals need to plan for that eventuality themselves, they are not in a particularly special position, many have people, for example the self-employed, live on incomes which might disappear with little or no notice.

MPs may “resign” decide not to stand again, or they may lose an election. Those are the only options. Even if they are deselected by their party they can still stand, and as Ken Livingstone and others have shown, those who deselected by parties can still stand for elected office and win. There is always notice that an election is impending.

The only payment at the end of a term of office I think could be defensible would be a small payment to enable transfer of casework; perhaps enough to keep a member of office staff employed for an extra month or two, or to enable the MP themselves to carry out that work.

There may be interesting consequences if the recommendations in the Standards in Public Life Report are adopted. MPs may be more willing to rebel against their parties, especially when they are thinking of retiring as being thrown out rather than retiring will result in a financial benefit to them. Also, as the recommendations will only come in for the next Parliament, it may encourage even more MPs to stand down before the next general election.

Outgoing MPs also get a nice golden goodbye if they step down, rather than voted out.

He said:

*While he explained the government position at the No2ID meeting that didn’t mean he agreed with it.

*He is against compulsory ID cards.

*He wants a less polarised debate aimed at finding the correct balance between “the benefits that advanced IT systems offer” and the “understandable demands for privacy”.

*£1.8m is spent by councils on compliance with central government

This is the average cost per council, not a national total.

*He said that the level of council tax was currently too low

Right now, we should be looking at how to keep taxes down across the board.

For council tax, the gearing effect means that to raise money you see a disproportionate increase in council tax rates to achieve modest rises in overall spending.

The proportion of local authority funding coming from local sources has fallen over the last century, with a major fall taking place when the community charge/poll tax was abolished. However, council tax has proved to be a great stealth tax for central government as Whitehall could blame local authorities for rises, even if when they were to meet new duties being placed on them by central government [eg moving licencing from the magistrates to the local authorities].

*The chairman introduced this question speaking of a trip he had made to china where he had visited an area where there were first just roads, then on his return saw a complete town.

That was me, not the chairman, discussing a friend’s visit. The point was to show that you can put infrastructure in place first – but I do not support the Chinese Development Control system! The ‘bridge to nowhere’ criticism is misplaced and unhelpful when infrastructure is in place early.

*From the comments section, David Vincent “thought Normington was essentially against a congestion charge himself.”

Yes, I am 100% against congestion charging, as I hope my successor will be.

Richard Normington

Will there be Conservative open primary for Cambridge?

Without Normington there is a clear vacancy for a candidate who thinks that investment in transport infrastructure accompanying the growth of Cambridge ought not be conditional on a congestion charge.

I am surprised to hear he has argued against the government policy on ID cards. In June 2007 I watched him defend ID cards at a No2ID meeting at Parkside; there too he appeared to me to be taking a position indistinguishable from that of the Government.

I think it is increasingly likely, despite the views from the likes of Charles Clarke, that the Labour Party will not go into the next election still proposing a national ID Card scheme and database. I hope the argument against them has already been won. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

Zeichiner’s view on the future of council housing is that there should be direct investment by the state rather than via housing associations or other intermediaries.

A search for “trident” on Mr Zeichener’s website reveals no results and I can’t find his view via a Google search either. His policy page does state that he is proud of our current government for leading the debate on reducing our nuclear weapons stocks.

Those who say that the internet is killing off local journalism (for that read “local newspapers”), and is therefore apparently a bad thing for democracy, should read blogs like this …and compare what they provide with the non-existent discussion on local governance traditionally provided by the local press in cities such as Cambridge.

But, I have to say that, having read it, all I want to do is sigh.

Why have we no candidate who cherry-picks the (obvious) best of the options and is prepared to stand up for those in front of their own party?

At the moment, I fear we simply have party mouthpieces.

Oh, and well done John ‘Locutus’ Hipkin - we need more like him.

(Where do we send our share of the £3 entry fee? )