Can you blame him (or her)?

This blog has received a copy of the following letter, apparently sent to the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. The name of the signatory has been redacted - for obvious reasons.

Dear Presiding Officer

Thank you for your letter of 21 June inviting me to be an independent member of the panel to be established to review parliamentary allowances. I regret that I must decline.

I note that I would have been expected to devote my time to this exercise without payment. I appreciate the hint in your letter that I might be appropriately rewarded in some future honours round but, frankly, an OBE would be of little consolation for leaving myself open to abuse from all quarters when the panel's report was eventually published.

It is my understanding that the people of Scotland have learned through bitter experience of the last eight years that too many of our MSPs are in it for what they can get out of it. This may be a false perception on their part but it is what they believe. Furthermore, their belief will have been strengthened by the obvious reluctance of the parliamentary authorities to do anything about the issue of the Edinburgh Accommodation Allowance, despite it having been raised to prominence more than a year ago. The current proposal to refer the matter to a panel for a further nine months' consideration, to be followed by - no doubt - lengthy consideration by the parliament itself, is unlikely to re-assure them.

I also have to ask if it is not the case that the establishment of the panel, allied to the fact that it would not report until next March, would mean that the new generation of MSPs will be able to buy property in Edinburgh under the existing rules. The panel would therefore be under pressure not to disadvantage those MSPs by changing the rules when the latter have committed themselves to buying property at the Parliament's expense during the interim. In these circumstances, it seems inevitable that the panel would be constrained to accept that any new rules would only apply from some point in 2008 and that MSPs who are already receiving the Edinburgh Accommodation Allowance should continue to benefit from it in the foreseeable future.

It might have been different if you were proposing an entirely independent panel. But I note that you intend to have Mr Tom McCabe as the SPCB's 'minder' on the panel. Again, if I may be frank, I have no wish to receive a visit from the Lanarkshire 'mafia', just because of an unguarded remark on my part during the panel's deliberations.

But the bottom line is that there are no possible recommendations which the panel could make which would not be excoriated, either by the media or by the MSPs. The whole exercise therefore becomes impossible. That the present system of allowances is excessively generous seems incontrovertible, but the parliament obviously has to do something to allow MSPs from far out of town to live in Edinburgh for part of the week. To be honest, I would rather work on the implementation of local income tax.

In conclusion, thanks but no thanks.

Yours sincerely


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