Motoring Madness

Frank Field, MP for Birkenhead, is grabbing the headlines in the ongoing MPs' expenses scandal.

The former Labour welfare minister is challenging a request from Sir Thomas Legg to pay back over £7,000 - claiming that it is unfair to introduce new 'rules' retrospectively.

Normally a sensible kind of chap, Frank has chosen a motoring analogy to illustrate his point - in the newspapers:

“It’s like driving along at 25mph in a 30mph zone - only to receive lots of tickets which say you should not have been driving over 20mph,” Field told the Sunday Times.

Put like that, it does sound as if MPs are being exposed to a bit of rough justice - but, of course, that's not really what happened.

MPs were given clear advice about the speeding limits - to continue with Frank's motoring analogy - they knew fine well they were on a 30mph road, but they put their foot to the floor nonetheless - because they thought no one was watching.

The rules on MPs' expenses are very clear - and always have been - here's the official advice from the House of Commons Green Book

"1. Claims should be above reproach and must reflect actual usage of the resources being claimed.

2. Claims must only be made for expenditure that it was necessary for a Member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her parliamentary duties."

So, MPs were never allowed to claim for people ironing their laundry or cleaning their moats - but they chose to submit these ludicrous claims because they thought they could get away with it - as they did for a long time.

All that's happening now is that Sir Thomas Legg is enforcing the rules as they should have been applied in the past.

If anything, MPs are getting off very lightly - there's a strong case for many of them being required to pay back much more.