After it was announced that IPSA had made an additional £10,000 available to MPs to support their office costs to help adapt to the ‘new normal’ of working from home with an increasing workload, there was much confusion and some misinformation about what this money was for. Emma Salisbury explains what MPs’ offices do, where that money might go, and what it has been like working for an MP as the UK has experienced a change in the way we live and work of a type that few (if any) people have experienced before.

The headlines were stark – MPs given £10,000 bonus to work from home! The news prompted criticism from political commentators and on social media, resulting in a petition (signed by 250,000 people) to reverse the decision. This wave of headlines prompted Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, to make a statement on the matter. Misinformation such as that put out about this issue has been one of the many democratic challenges of the coronavirus crisis, as the Unit’s Deputy Director, Alan Renwick, and Michela Palese have discussed elsewhere on this blog.

The truth is less exciting, and results in fewer sales and clicks. MPs pay for their offices and staff via the expenses system administered by IPSA, a body set up after the 2009 expenses scandal (for a summary of the 2009 scandal, see this recent blogpost by former Commons clerk Sir David Natzler). Each MP has budgets for their necessities: accommodation, travel, staffing, and office costs. The latter of these is how we pay for the boring things we need to run an office, everything from paperclips to envelopes to printer ink. In order to help support us during the pandemic, IPSA raised the cap on this budget by £10,000 to make sure that every MP’s office had the capacity, if needed, to buy whatever was necessary to make the transition to home working; if the MP or one of their staff does not have access to a computer or printer at home, for example, the budget can cover acquiring this equipment. 

All purchases reimbursed through IPSA need to be claimed for with a receipt and an explanation of why it was necessary, and the conditions of these new funds are no different. If IPSA decides that a claim for an item is not reasonable, then it can refuse to reimburse the MP for that expense, meaning it would have to come out of the MP’s own pocket. The extra amount is a cap, not a target: many MPs will not need to claim for the maximum additional amount. No matter how much of the budget MPs end up spending, this £10,000 is certainly not a lump sum gift to them or their staff.  Continue reading →