MPs should be able to employ whoever they like, including members of their families, as long as they do a proper job. But what is, after all, taxpayers’ money should be subject to much tighter rules of disclosure and audit. That is one of several changes which Parliament and the Government need to introduce to clean up taxpayer financing of politics.

The number of wrongdoers is probably very small. But the public’s view of politicians has been damaged further by recent allegations over the funding of Labour’s deputy leadership election and the Derek Conway affair. This is not a partisan matter. Just look at the universal condemnation of Mr Conway, and backing for the belated removal of the whip, by Tory bloggers, notably on the widely followed website, http://conservativehome.blogs.com

MPs, and peers for that matter, cannot retreat behind a club, “we are all ladies and gentlemen of honour”, attitude. The public no longer accepts that. MPs can no longer benefit from arrangements over pensions, expenses and allowances that do not apply to those working in the public and private sectors. But this should not mean hair-shirted self-denial, where MPs who do not employ staff and pride themselves on low expenses, such as the Tory Philip Hollobone, are applauded by naive antipolitician populists. MPs need staff to deal efficiently with the problems of their constituents. So it is wrong to regard allowances as a personal bonus or part of their pay.

Moreover, MPs are not employees of Parliament. They are independent, elected representatives, more akin to small businessmen. They should not be limited in their hiring. I know of many wives working for MPs who earn their pay fully. And employing a spouse probably reduces the risk of strains and splits that afflict the marriages of all too many MPs.

But since taxpayers’ money is involved, MPs should fully account, with receipts, for all the money they get (as journalists have to do for all items they charge). Expenditure on salaries is already made directly by the Commons to staff against a contract of employment. But procedures need to be tightened up with more explicit lists of who is employed, any family link with an MP and formal approval of work done.

Moreover, as the Senior Salaries Review Body recommended a fortnight ago, “it would help to increase public confidence in the system of reimbursing MPs’ expenditure if MPs were to agree that each year a small sample of MPs, perhaps 5 to 10 per cent, were to have their claims audited by the National Audit Office”. But this suggestion has been resisted by some senior MPs. Such a package would not undermine MPs’ independence and should be linked to an urgent tidying-up of the rules on outside donations, now confusingly split between Parliament and the Electoral Commission.

The one-stop shop for declaration by MPs envisaged in the 2006 Electoral Administration Act should be implemented as soon as possible. Separately, the Government should speed up its review of the powers of the commission, bringing in a more proportionate scale of penalties, between the extremes of a mere reprimand and referral to the police.

MPs will have to be more open if they want to convince voters that most of the public money they receive is justified.

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