Housing our political representatives

The country has been rocked by recent revelations over MPs expenses. Politicians of all stripes are up to their neck in it – they have been claiming for everything from bath plugs to moat cleaning and the public are rightly hopping mad. But the era of outlandish claims will, hopefully pretty soon, come to an end. MPs voted a short while ago to make their expense claims almost totally transparent, therefore having public scrutiny as a powerful deterrent to stop them from engaging in this sort of greedy behaviour in future.

One area that has proved even worse than the luxury items and services claimed on expenses is the question of MPs making capital gains on property purchases. The most egregious and high profile abuses of the allowances system all involve the second homes allowance, and home purchases have been by far the most costly. MPs have claimed for mortgages that didn’t exist, have not provided receipts for rental and mortgage claim, and have been engaged in the morally questionable practice of “flipping”.