If I covered every aspect of day two this would be an excruciatingly long post so here’s a quick run down of the itinerary and a bit of detail on a couple of things. Carol Beaumont will also post on her highlights.
We met with three MPs to discuss current issues in UK politics. We then had a presentation on community cohesion and urban regeneration. Next was a visit to MP Betty Williams’ office followed by a reception and lunch at the House of Lords hosted by Lord Speaker Rt Hon Baroness Hayman. After lunch was a briefing on pay and allowances and standards in public life, then a meeting with Rt Hon Kevin Barron, Chair of the UK Health Select Committee. The day ended with a briefing on UK security and counter terrorism.
Expenses and allowances dominated almost every conversation (the record for not discussing it was 40 minutes at the counter terrorism briefing). As one MP put it in our first session – “there is no political scene at the moment. We are absolutely paralysed by the expenses issues.” Whilst there are many examples of inappropriate claims, there is a bit of a media beat up going on too. Notorious claims like the moat and the duck house, for instance, were never actually paid out. But change does need to happen.
Interestingly, those changes look as though the UK system will start to look very similar to our own system. Use of the second home allowance will be more restricted (as ours is to hotel bills, rent or mortgage interest) in fact possibly so restricted that it will be impossible for MPs to cover all of their costs if they rent or purchase a home near Westminster, which is perhaps going a bit far.
Employment of staff is quite different here. Staff are employed directly by MPs who draw on an allowance pool to fund their staffing costs. It is more flexible in that MPs can decide how many staff they want and what they will pay them (within a set allowance cap) but also more open to abuse or at least the appearance of abuse than our system of set staffing numbers who are employed by parliamentary services. The MPs here were interested in our system, but a bit reluctant to make the change although I expect they will end up having to do it anyway.
As you might imagine the Health Select Committee meeting was a highlight for me. What I found particularly interesting is that the Government MP chairing the committee had no problem whatsoever using the committee to thoroughly scrutinise, criticise and make recommendations to the executive of his own Government in a way that is not quite so apparent in our system. He is proposing a comprehensive select committee inquiry into Social Care (more or less what we think of as Aged Care) to create a document that can inform the policies or any future Government over the next twenty years.
The UK Health Committee recently came to NZ (we met them briefly) to study PHARMAC, Alcohol policy and issues, Patient Safety and ACC. Basically as far as I can tell most of the health issues we are dealing with, the UK is grappling with too. That includes my particular interest at the moment, Tobacco Displays.
Right, time to stop. This is getting too long and I need my breakfast.
