Search: Expenses reform outlined
Westminster's new standards regulator is to give details of proposals for reforming the discredited expenses system.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) is to publish a series of options for cleaning up MPs' allowances that will be subject to public consultation.
There has been speculation that the body will not back full implementation of last year's report from Sir Christopher Kelly's Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) - which demanded an end to taxpayer-funded mortgages and a ban on the employment of MPs' relatives.
Earlier this week Ipsa chairman Sir Ian Kennedy described the recommendations as only a "guide" for the new authority.
"We are an independent body. We respect gratefully what Kelly has produced. We are building a scheme around Kelly, but we have to make our own way and we have to win the confidence of everybody that we are making our own way," he told a Hansard Society event.
He said Ipsa's proposals would be based on "expenses backed by receipts" and not allowances to which MPs are deemed to be entitled.
The system will be divided into five categories: travel and subsistence; accommodation; staff; rental of constituency offices; and general running costs such as office equipment.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
"As regards each of those categories, we have begun from the position taken by the CSPL and worked through ways of translating recommendations into action," he said.
Sir Ian was appointed in November, a day ahead of the Kelly Report, to oversee the introduction and operation of a reformed expense system for the House of Commons, after the exposure of widespread abuse of the old system.
Ipsa will be the first external and independent body in history to govern MPs' expenses and the intention is to have the new system in place in time for the coming general election.
