The imbroglio over Members’ expenses has one silver lining – it paves the way, not only to strict control over the financial excesses of some profiteering MPs, but also to much wider reforms which could remove many of the darker corners of Britain’s secretive society. If FOI has brought to light aspects of the Parliamentary scene which should never have been concealed, should the transparency it opens up be cast over other murky areas of British life where the public has an entitlement to know the facts? Since accountability has all but collapsed in British society, might the crisis over MPs’ expenses, if handled toughly as the public demands, provide an exemplar of how the checks and balances so desperately needed could now be restored across the whole of British social and economic life? And are there new ways of achieving effective supervision without the corrupting influence of self-regulation or regulatory capture or too much bureaucracy? The answers to all three are Yes.

FOI has hitherto been restricted to the public sector. But there is a strong case for extending it, particularly to ‘hybrid’ companies engaged in the thousands of public-private partnerships (PFI) which stretch across vast swaths of the British economy, but also to the biggest companies whose operations have an unduly preponderant influence throughout British life, and indeed also to the major trans-national companies which carry responsibility for the public interest overseas and whose activities are sometimes murky and often shrouded in secrecy. Of course this would apply, not to matters of corporate organisation or commercial interest, but only where the State and the general public has a legitimate concern – matters of tax relief, subsidies, use of tax havens, as well as labour standards and social and environmental data. In the case of the trans-nationals, it should also embrace transfer pricing (since this is a massive tax avoidance device) and country-by-country accounting.
There is a strong need at Westminste, not only to require repayment of claims improperly made, but also in the more extreme cases of exploitation that a proper penalty is imposed. A bank robber who is caught with the swag and then says sorry and offers to pay it back would not be let off without an appropriate penalty for wrongdoing. There is already in the Labour Party a provision for disciplining MPs who “bring the Party into disrepute”. It was used recently to de-select a Parliamentary candidate (for Calder Valley) who in a minor fracas had caused slight damage to her ex-husband’s car. How vastly greater a charge is the filching of tens of thousands of pounds through ‘flipping’ home designations, sale profiteering and tax evasion? If then the more heinous offenders had the whip withdrawn and were de-selected as candidates for the next election, or were expelled from the House for bringing it into disrepute, it would bring into sharp relief the smack of accountability as an example to be followed elsewhere throughout British life.
And David Cameron’s proposal that in future all MPs’ claims should go on-line also offers a new and better way of controlling excess and greed. If journalists, business executives and professionals, in making claims for tax deductions, occupational expenses or benefits in kind (euphemistically known as ‘fringe benefits’), knew that all these claims could be publicly accessed, they would be far more careful to limit themselves to what was strictly justified.
The scandal over MPs’ expenses might actually bring about a more open Britain, a more accountable Britain, and a more equal Britain. That’s about as much as can be hoped for from a horrendous collapse of trust and integrity in the nation’s leadership, but it’s still certainly worth pressing for.

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