Journalist Heather Brooke who led the Freedom of Information campaign to make MPs disclose their expenses says she wants to set up a new way the public can register demand for change in Parliament.
She says on her website Your Right to Know: "I have a plan which I hope to announce in the coming days. I’m going to set up some mechanism to register the public’s demand for change in Parliament. We need a new system for MPs expenses. One that is simply, transparent and gives the final scrutiny to those people in the best position to provide it - the constituents. We need a new system for MPs expenses. One that is simply, transparent and gives the final scrutiny to those people in the best position to provide it - the constituents."
Brooke is scathing about Labour's proposals to hive off the auditing of MPs expenses to a private company. She describes a conversation with Stuart Bell of the Members Estimates Committee in the Green Room at Channel 4 News.
"Bell told me Labour’s latest reactionary plan to hive off the auditing of expenses to a private company ‘like Capita or CapGemini’. These companies apparently picked at random by him. I assumed these were just his initial brainstorming thoughts. But no, apparently this was the government’s latest ruse to stop us, the people, getting a look directly at MPs receipts."
She adds: "While I had his undivided attention, I asked Bell about Speaker Michael Martin who was behind the decision to take my case first to the Information Tribunal and then to the High Court, wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process. “He’s a very nice fellow. A Glaswegian. He does a good job looking after MPs.”
Brooke comments: "Not, it seems, such a good job looking after constituents or indeed the taxpayer."
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