Comment Central: Can we banish Punch and Judy politics?

The crisis over MPs' expenses is unique in modern British politics. Previous crises - sleaze in the 1990s, the winter of discontent in 1978-79, the Profumo affair in the 1960s - affected only the governing party. This implicates the whole political class. The beneficiaries could easily be parties that seek not to strengthen our parliamentary system but to undermine it.

Reform lies with the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly. But if it is to do its work thoroughly, it cannot report for many months. Can anything be done in the meantime to help to assuage public wrath?

Gordon Brown tried to secure such a solution when he proposed, in place of the additional costs allowance, an attendance allowance such as operates in the House of Lords. This was rejected by opposition leaders and MPs. It was not perfect, but many MPs failed to realise how out of touch the House of Commons has become. It is now a veritable house without windows, presided over by a Speaker who, instead of raising the dignity of the Commons, lowers it.

The authority of the Speaker rests on utter impartiality, not only between parties but between backbench MPs. Criticising the views of individual members, such as Kate Hoey and Norman Baker, is unprecedented. The Speaker is the servant of the whole House, not just of those MPs who agree with him. It is now for MPs to decide it is time for Speaker Martin to be handed a revolver and a bottle of whisky.

The Prime Minister was right that immediate action was needed. His track record on these matters is good. As Chancellor, he insisted that ministers in the new Labour Government from 1997 to 2001 forgo substantial rises. This was criticised by the Senior Salaries Review Board as undermining the whole system of pay and allowances. So from 2001 ministers took their full entitlement.

Mr Brown should try again to seek agreement on an interim solution. What might its outlines be?

To answer, it is first necessary to trace how the system of pay and allowances has become so degraded. This began not under the present Government but in the 1980s. Jerry Hayes, the former Conservative MP for Harlow, remembers that when he entered the Commons in 1983 MPs' salaries were inadequate at £14,510 a year. Margaret Thatcher, he recalls, ordered an independent review that recommended rises that would make even Jacqui Smith blush. But that would have enraged voters. So Mrs Thatcher rejected it.

MPs were furious. To appease them, they were encouraged to supplement their salaries through the expenses system. Recompense would replace remuneration. “Don't be too hard on today's MPs,” Mr Hayes concludes. “It's all been done before. This lot just got caught.” Mr Brown, he says, “is not to blame for the greed - the person responsible for filling more boots than Imelda Marcos is Margaret Thatcher”.

The system must now be rigorously rationalised. To eliminate “flipping”, an MP's main residence should be deemed to be in or nearest the constituency. After all, MPs represent their constituencies in the House of Commons, not the Commons in their constituencies. In place of the additional costs allowance, MPs should be given, as peers are, an overnight allowance plus subsistence costs incurred in performing their parliamentary duties.

The cost of furniture, gardening, swimming pools and horse manure should be paid by MPs from their salaries. This would mean, until Sir Christopher reports, a fall in the standard of living of many MPs. That, perhaps, is no bad thing when so many of the public have to confront the consequences of recession. It will put MPs in a stronger position to empathise with constituents facing hard times without tax concessions or an additional costs allowance.

A permanent solution must await the Committee on Standards in Public Life. But the outlines are clear. So far, MPs have interpreted the doctrines of parliamentary sovereignty and privilege to mean that they themselves should make the final decision on their pay and allowances. It is hardly surprising that so many abuses are found to lie “within the rules”. These matters must be taken entirely out of MPs' hands. At present the Senior Salaries Review Body makes recommendations on pay and allowances. But they are only advisory and should be made mandatory.

The Senior Salaries Review Body is, however, a quango of appointees from the great and the good. It has no input from the public, nor any means of determining public feeling. To remedy this, Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary, has suggested that MPs' remuneration be considered by citizens' juries. A citizens' jury is a group of between 12 and 20 people, selected at random, who examine witnesses to reach a conclusion on some public issue.

Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Mr Brown said that he favoured this mechanism as a “new type of politics” since it allowed voters themselves to become more involved in the political process.

Whatever the precise mechanism, it is essential that members of the public are now involved in the determination of MPs' pay and allowances. Only through radical reform will we be able to ensure that our political system does not undergo the degradation that destroyed the Fourth Republic in France in 1958. Britain, it was once said, can never be ruined but by her Parliament. It is now for the public to play their part in saving Parliament from itself.

Vernon Bogdanor is Professor of Government at Oxford University. His book, The New British Constitution, is published next month

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