Well, hats off to Gordon Brown and the cabinet. I have rarely, if ever, had the opportunity to praise Gordon Brown or this government, but credit where credit is due, they have dealt with the appalling abuse of MP’s allowances with sang-froid. Of course this proposal must be voted on my members of parliament and you can rest assured that there will be pressure on MP’s of all sides to vote this through, perhaps as early as next week.

Second home allowances will be abolished and replaced with an ‘attendance allowance’, this will do away with claims for anything from mortgage interest through to new kitchens and bathroom plugs! No announcement has been made in relation to the amount of the attendance allowance, but the public will very quickly react negatively if this proves too generous, or the conditions too loose.

Whoever sets the allowance must be cognisant of the fact that MP’s are already paid to attend parliament, therefore the allowance must not be based on, for example, the remuneration paid to a non-executive director attending board meetings. The attendance allowance will only be payable to those with constituencies outside London, although it is not known what the boundaries will be and shall only be claimable during the parliamentary session. Those with ‘grace and favour’ homes will not be entitled to claim for the attendance allowance, this however, should never have been the case anyway.

It is proposed that MP’s will have to provide receipts for all expenditure, including expenses below the current threshold of £25. This will, of course, bring MP’s in line with common business practice. No longer will the public accept that MP’s can be considered ‘honourable’ in such matters, MP’s must be dealt with in exactly the same manner as everyone else, they are not a special case. There is also a suggestion that MP’s should contribute more for their pensions, I, however, believe that an additional contribution of £60 per month is small beer, when you consider that their two-thirds final salary scheme is one of the most generous in the country and not available to the masses as a direct result of Gordon Browns raid on private sector pension schemes 11 years ago and in each successive year.

MP’s will also have to declare all of their income earned outside parliament as well as providing a record of how many hours they spend working for these businesses. This is quite sensible, but I hope they will also include strict rules. After all, MP’s are already paid to complete a full-time job, therefore I would expect a big question mark over where they would find the spare time to fit in these extra jobs.

All in all, if this gets accepted and quickly, then I would be the first to congratulate Gordon Brown and the cabinet. However, Mr Brown must be very careful not to use his usual ’smoke and mirrors’ trick to dupe the public, nor must the replacement allowances be too generous, because the intention is to remove unjustifiable allowances, not simply replace them with something else. We shall be watching!