Professor Sir Ian Kennedy indicated he could scrap MP expenses reforms
The head of the new watchdog charged with cleaning up Parliament is at the centre of a political firestorm after it emerged that he may scrap key elements of the plan to overhaul the system of MPs' expenses.
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy let it be known through briefings to newspapers that he was ready to abandon the proposed ban on MPs employing family members paid for out of the public purse.
Even more controversially, he was also reported to be planning to drop a requirement for MPs to hand back any profits they made when they came to sell up second homes which had been bought with mortgages subsidised by the taxpayer.
The two measures were key planks of the reform plan published earlier this week by Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the Committee for Standards in Public Life, and backed by the three main party leaders.
However, Sir Ian - who was appointed as the £100,000-a-year, three-days-a-week chairman of new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), made clear hat he had "no obligation" to accept the plan.
He indicated that he thought some of Sir Christopher's recommendations were open to legal challenge and that he was intending to launch his own consultation process.
The news was greeted with alarm by supporters of reform who warned that Sir Ian was opening the door to those MPs opposed to change to unravel the whole of Sir Christopher's plan.
Labour MP John Mann said that Sir Ian should quit if he was not prepared to implement Sir Christopher's recommendations in full. "If he is intending to start consulting again and reopen it, he should resign because that's not his job - £100,000, I understand that he's being paid - his job is to implement the Kelly review," he said.
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker - an outspoken campaigner for reform - said he was "deeply dismayed" at the prospect that some of Sir Christopher's key recommendations could be dropped. "That rips the heart out of what Sir Christopher Kelly says. There is not very much left after that," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
However a spokesman for Ipsa said that it had a "statutory requirement" to consult on the content of the new scheme. "Sir Ian made his position clear when he was nominated as chair - Ipsa's job is to take the reins following the Kelly report and put together a scheme for consulting on," the spokesman said.
You couldn't make this up! MP's are already implying they need £40,000 a year each to make up for their loss of "expenses"!
Any more delays and I, for one, will lobby as hard as I can for each and every MP's claims from the past to be investigated by the police, and for the courts to then decide what were "mistakes" and what may have been fraud.
As in the case of the Banks Bail out, proper conditions were not established as to the reports remit and a guarantee that its results would be binding.
Sir Tom's bonus could have been abolished as a condition of the bail out loan.
There could be no juggling with the Kelly report had the conditions to apply had been set before hand.
MP's should not be able to influence or alter independently arrived at conclusions.
Its another stitchup! The people pay again! Same old story, but maybe this time we have had enough. MPs will just have to watch at the next election as their seats are whipped from under them! You can push us so far....
Why is everyone surprised, the government will always make sure they come out on top. The discussion to wife swap to get around the ruling already shows they are not taking anything seriously. And what should we expect after all they know what is 'best' for us lowly taxpayers. Next election through them out!!!