Heather Brooke: There's nothing private about an MP's expenses

It's no surprise that Tony Blair is now facing questions about a 'black hole' in his expenses

With such a lack of transparency, it's no surprise that Tony Blair is now facing questions about a "black hole" in his expenses. In the past four years, about £45,000 of Blair's expenses have remained publicly unaccounted for. On Saturday, Downing Street admitted for the first time that £15,000 claimed for his constituency home in Co Durham was not being used to pay the costs of a mortgage on the property.

Politicians must understand that if your nose is in the trough, expect to have your tail tweaked!

The Scottish Parliament has accepted this. After the Easter break, they will begin online publication of all MSPs' expense claims, utility bills, travel and mileage forms. This level of transparency will make Scottish politicians some of the most accountable in the world.

"It means we'll no longer have to respond to mounting Freedom of Information requests for MSPs' expense claims," said a Scottish Parliament spokesman. Such requests led to the resignation of the Tory MSP leader David McLetchie over questions about taxi misuse. The Scotsman revealed how Alex Salmond, the Scottish Nationalist, claimed £8,500 to commute by taxi from his home in Linlithgow to the Scottish Parliament, and Keith Raffan, the former Liberal Democrat MSP, claimed mileage expenses for driving round his constituency when he was out of the country.

If this is happening in Scotland, it's undoubtedly going on in Westminster to an even greater extent. After all, there are only 129 MSPs (compared to Westminster's 659) and they get roughly half (£61,240) the amount of their London compatriots.

Only in October 2004 did MPs even agree to publish headline figures for expense categories. By contrast, the Scottish Parliament began publishing these figures in 1999, and in each subsequent year they added more detail. We know that Geraint Davies, Labour MP for Croydon Central, topped the list in 2005 by claiming £176,026, while Terry Davis claimed the least (£42,709), but we have little detail on where and why this money was spent.

It is erroneous for MPs to claim such information is private. MPs are public representatives. Money for expenses comes from the public. Therefore, MPs have an obligation to account for how they spend this money to the people who provided it in the first place.

Instead, politicians have refused all FOI requests for a detailed breakdown of expenses. A few weeks ago, the Commons was finally forced to publish totals for all travel by air, car and rail, but this is a case of too little, too late. A myriad of sins can be hidden in sum totals. For example, they're not going to expose the MP who uses taxpayer-funded black cabs to ferry himself to Annabel's for a private rendezvous. The abuse by MSPs of expenses would never have come to light under Westminster's secretive rules.

As I so often hear from the state when it invades my privacy - what's the problem, if you have nothing to hide? Can I then assume, using the Government's own logic, that our MPs do have something to hide as evidenced by their stubborn refusal to open up? One should always be suspicious when politicians hold fast the doors of government with white-knuckle desperation. Invariably it means there's something scandalous going on.

Westminster's feudal secrecy is out of step with other democratic countries, too. Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas in Ireland have published detailed expenses since 27 July 1999. Australia and New Zealand came to the same decision years ago. In 1991, I discovered as a young reporter covering the Washington state legislature that all senators' and representatives' expense receipts were public records available for anyone to view. They also had to publish their entire tax return.

Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance and author of The Bumper Book of Government Waste, recently made an FOI request for a detailed breakdown of MPs' additional costs allowances after hearing rumours that some politicians were using taxpayers' money to buy expensive electronic goods and a top-of-the-range food mixer.

"The sums may be small, but if they are being profligate with their personal expenses, they are probably not giving good value for money with larger spending projects," Elliott said. The short-changed British public deserves better from Westminster.

heather@yrtk.org

The writer is the author of 'Your Right to Know' (Pluto Press)