MPs' Expenses - Humfrey Malins

During the recent furore over MPs attempting to hide their expenses, I wrote to my MP using the wonderful services of http://www.writetothem.com/

Dear Humfrey Malins, I understand that MPs plan to grant themselves the privilege of exempting themselves from Freedom of Information requests concerning their expenses. Whenever I have a business expense, my employer asks for every receipt, no matter how small. How else is it to correctly pay its tax and protect itself against fraud? I would like you to remember that it is MY money that you are spending. I happily pay tax for the betterment of this country. I do not object to paying your wages or any other reasonable expenses you may have as you go about your business. What I object to is you hiding your spending from me. How else am I to gauge whether you are defrauding me or if you represent value for money? As one of many people who is looking for a change of government at the next election, you action on this matter will influence my vote. Yours sincerely, Terence Eden

A scant 2 hours later, I had a reply!

Dear Mr Eden, The House of commons authorities check our expenses to the last penny, and I have no problem publishing mine. I wonder if you agree that since Civil servants and the police are public servants whether they too should publish all their expenses best wishes Humfrey Malins CBE MP

So, I replied,

Dear Mr Malins, Many thanks for your swift reply. It's great to see an MP engaging with their constituents. Do you have a blog or website where you will be publishing these figures? I do believe that all Civil Servants should publish these expenses to the people who employ them. If, for example, a Police Authority sees that a PC is claiming extortionate or unusual expenses, they should be able to challenge them. Ultimately, voters chose whether or not to employ an MP. Therefore, I think their expenses should be visible to the public. That said, the same should go for anyone who is employed by the state. I come from the Open Source Software world - one of our mantras is "Many eyes make all bugs shallow". The more people you have looking for a problem, the easier it is to spot and fix. It also means that people are less likely to behave maliciously if they know there is a good chance their misdeeds will be spotted. Would you have any objection to me publishing this correspondence on my blog - https://shkspr.mobi/blog - ? Many thanks - and please encourage all those in your party to vote to keep their expenses viewable by all. Terence Eden

Bizarrely, I received a written response a few days later

So, full marks to Mr Malins for being on the ball with this one. It really is great to see what a bit of effort will get you.