Analysis: Simmering divisions
Harriet Harman hopes parliamentary standards bill will pass through Commons smoothly
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Schools secretary Ed Balls was accused today of breaching new Speaker John Bercow's ruling that MPs should speak to the Commons before making any announcement to the press.
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Forty-five Conservative MPs have agreed to make repayments from their expenses claims after the party's scrutiny panel probed their use (or misuse) of the second homes allowance (SHA). |  |
Saturday, 27, Jun 2009 12:01
By Alex Stevenson
MPs will try to keep their differences in check during the parliamentary standards bill, but party disunity will never be far away.
The Commons will spend the first three days of next week poring over the legislation as they rush to make the bill law before the summer recess.
Why the hurry? Because, as all MPs are agreed, they desperately need to be seen doing something in the face of public anger at the expenses scandal.
They will strive to prevent a united front as the Commons, under new Speaker John Bercow, 'grows up' and becomes a place of calm, reasoned debate.
Don't be surprised if they fail to meet this criteria during debates on the new bill. A strange mix of agreement and simmering, unmitigated party rivalry is more likely.
The latter's presence has been palpably obvious throughout recent weeks.
David Cameron immediately imposed his own solution on the Conservative party ranks, hoping to be portrayed as the decisive, firm leader.
Gordon Brown's proposal for a flat daily rate was No 10's attempt to grasp the mettle, but it proved as big a hit as the YouTube message with which he delivered it.
Party leaders strove to be seen taking a lead, making the best of a bad situation.
Cameron appeared to take the longer-term view. He forced through a temporarily damaging scrutiny panel in the hope it might dampen public anger.
"Unlike Labour and the Lib Dems, we have not just contented ourselves by accepting the tired old justification that something is 'within the rules'," he said last Thursday.
"Instead, we have gone beyond the letter of the rules, examined claims in detail and sought to agree, together, claims which while we believe them to have been properly made, could be regarded as disproportionate."
This rather shameless one-upmanship contrasted with Brown, who had perhaps been consigned too quickly to the failure dustbin after his first proposal was shot down in flames.
Last week he tried a more subtle approach, managing to persuade 100 young Labour activists and candidates to take a pledge promising they would be good politicians.
"We've got to make sure that people see that their members of parliament and those who seek to represent them are acting in the public interest and not in their self interest," he said at Labour party headquarters.
Though less spectacularly finger-pointing, it might have worked if it weren't for the fact it was spectacularly un-newsworthy. As usual, Brown trails Cameron when it comes to getting the message out there.
A better advocate for Labour and the government is the Commons' chief business manager, Harriet Harman, who announced details of today's parliamentary standards bill to the House last week.
"The abuse by some members of our allowance system has caused a high level of public concern. It has required this comprehensive range of actions to ensure that we can say to the public, in the words of [failed Speaker candidate Parmjit Dhanda] 'we get it, and we're sorting it'."
It will be difficult for Ms Harman, whose job requires a degree of cooperation between parties, to shepherd the parliamentary standards bill through the Commons without the opposition parties jostling for position.
For the leader of the House is guilty of it herself. Earlier this month she gave evidence to Sir Christopher Kelly's ongoing inquiry into MPs' allowances, which will come up with the long-term solution to the expenses problem.
This she described as the "software" – but boasted it's the "hardware" in the form of the regulator which has been provided by the government that will help. This, she explained, would help end the claiming 'culture' which led to abuse.
"There won't be a culture, there will just be MPs getting on with their jobs," she pressed as she looked forward to a brave new reformed world.
MPs are hardwired, more than anything else, to seek party political advantage. And so we can expect the parliamentary standards bill to be an uneasy effort at cooperation, flawed by the usual party-griping business as usual.
With a general election looming, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Ms Harman is determined to end the expenses-claiming habit. But even her considerable powers won't be able to stop the much deeper culture governing MPs – their unstoppable addiction to party politics.