For the Record. David Cameron
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a situation occurring ever again. That included another bold step, which was to give away a power that chancellors had long held.
I had some experience of the stringency with which annual accounts and results were published when I worked at Carlton. Lawyers and auditors would pore over every word to check for accuracy. But that was business. In politics, it seemed to be totally different. It was up to the Treasury to predict future growth on which its spending plans would be based. That gave it the opportunity to manipulate the growth forecasts and fiddle tax receipts, which Labour took full advantage of.
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s forecasts became works of fiction. At every Budget and Pre-Budget Report they would become increasingly optimistic. When better estimates or true figures emerged, there were wild disparities. George and I proposed that an independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) should make those predictions instead. Of course it wasn’t easy for anyone to guess how much the economy would grow (or, at this point, contract). But by removing the potential for bias, we could prevent figures being massaged to justify spending increases our country couldn’t afford.
That Christmas of 2008, shops like Woolworths and MFI were disappearing from our high streets. The New Year, 2009, brought confirmation of Britain’s first recession since 1991. What concerned people wasn’t just how the deficit would affect them today. It was how this ‘spend today, pay tomorrow’ culture was saddling the next generation with debt. How wrong it was – morally – to make our children pay for our excesses. This was perfectly captured in our poster that January – a picture of a baby with the line: ‘Dad’s nose. Mum’s eyes. Gordon Brown’s debt.’
Brown’s favourite insult to hurl at me was ‘This is no time for a novice.’ I worried deeply that, at this time of great financial turbulence, it would become especially potent. After all, George and I had never held ministerial office. And we did make mistakes.
But we had carefully thought out our strategy. We stuck to our instincts – instincts we believed the public would share – that a crisis caused by recklessness and secrecy should be met with prudence and honesty. And we ended the period with more people trusting us than the government on the crucial issue of managing the economy – the first time we had had a consistent lead over Labour since the 1990s.
But the second meteorite was about to hit.
Great political controversies tend to drive us all to think in simple headlines. This one seemed like a straightforward story: brave campaigner sets out on a mission to unearth grave wrongdoing; Parliament resists releasing information it ought to; the information comes out anyway, and it reveals appalling practices, illegality and corruption.
All those things are true of the expenses scandal, but the full truth is more complex. And I didn’t just have a front-row seat, I was on the judge’s bench – and in the dock myself. And what I saw from that unique position was, yes, wrongdoing that needed unearthing, but also unfairness, heartbreak and lots and lots of grey areas.
The context was this. MPs were entitled to claim an ‘Additional Cost Allowance’ (ACA) of up to £24,000 per year for running a second home, because they have to be based in Westminster for part of the week and in their constituency for the rest of it. There was also £22,000 of ‘Incidental Expenses Provision’ for office expenses, over and above the salaries for staff. Rules about employing relatives as members of staff were virtually non-existent.
The ACA in particular was treated by many as if it should be claimed automatically. Over many years the salaries of MPs had been held back – usually for political reasons – and their allowances increased instead. Often, MPs would just send a load of receipts in to the Commons Fees Office and let them decide what household expenditures or repairs should qualify.
Our party had a taste of what was coming when it was revealed that there was little evidence of what MP Derek Conway’s researcher, his son, had done to earn the thousands of pounds he’d received at the taxpayer’s expense.
Labour experienced its own preview of the scandal when some receipts for which home secretary Jacqui Smith had been reimbursed were published. They included two pay-per-view pornographic films, which her husband soon owned up to.
I knew I had to act fast. I made sure all our MPs filled out a ‘Right to Know’ form that provided the basic details of their expenses claim and whether they employed any relatives. These would be made public.
Labour’s reaction was to continue to attempt to keep the problem under wraps. Leader of the House of Commons Harriet Harman wanted the House to vote to ensure that MPs’ expenses were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. But it was too late. The Daily Telegraph bought a stolen disc with every MP’s expenses claims set out in full, receipts and all. Day after day it published the details. Determined to remain ahead of the game, I called a press conference at the St Stephen’s Club. My response included an apology and a roadmap – and I didn’t conceal my anger about what had been going on: ‘Politicians have done things that are unethical and wrong. I don’t care if they were within the rules – they were wrong.’
I set up an internal scrutiny panel, a so-called Star Chamber, including my aide Oliver Dowden, known as ‘Olive’, who I also called ‘the undertaker’, since he so frequently brought me the bad news. The panel, assisted by a team that was combing through all the information, would examine the expenses claims of every Tory MP, and would decide who had to pay money back. Anyone who refused to comply would lose the whip. This was faster and firmer than the Parliament-wide independent inquiry that Brown would set up, and showed that we had understood the severity of the situation and had gripped it early.
The whole thing became a daily ordeal. The Telegraph would call up in the morning, give us details about whose expenses they were going to expose the next day, and allow us until 5 p.m. to respond. Ultimately the call – both the judgement call and the phone call to the MP – had to be made by me.
The calls included some of the strangest conversations. ‘Your entire family were working for you?’ ‘Why do you need a ride-on lawnmower?’ ‘What does your swimming pool have to do with your parliamentary duties?’
As before and since, I always tried to give people a chance to explain their situation, rather than being driven by arbitrary deadlines. But it was hard. Some colleagues didn’t help themselves by taking to the airwaves. Anthony Steen became one of the most famous examples. Having claimed over £80,000 for the upkeep of his country house, including rabbit fencing and tree surgery, he insisted to BBC radio that he had behaved impeccably: ‘I’ve done nothing criminal, that’s the most awful thing, and do you know what it’s about? Jealousy. I’ve got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral …’
He had to go.
I had to deal with Peter Viggers, who had claimed, among £30,000 of gardening expenses, for a £1,600 ‘floating duck island’. With Michael Ancram, whose swimming-pool boiler was serviced at taxpayers’ expense. With Douglas Carswell, who put a ‘love seat’ on expenses. With John Gummer, whose moles were removed from his lawn using public funds. It just seemed to go on and on, and to get weirder and weirder.
Then there was Douglas Hogg, who was, according to reports, reimbursed by the taxpayer for having his moat – yes, moat – cleaned. To be fair to him, he had never actually claimed for this directly. He had given all his receipts to the Fees Office and, satisfied that they added up to far more than the ACA, they had just given him the full amount. I could see his point. He was doing what he had been told to do. It was all within the rules. But, as Andy put it, the point was that he had a bloody moat.
There were some heart-rending examples at the other end of the spectrum. One MP who was asked to pay back thousands of pounds was desperate not to do so, both because it would look as if he was admitting guilt when there was no impropriety, and because as a young MP with a large family he genuinely couldn’t afford to.
The sheer, granular detail being unearthed made the scandal run and run. Receipt by receipt, the Telegraph gave an insight into MPs’ lives – and revealed a class that seemed