The fall-out from the MP Derek Conway affair is starting to impact on AMs in Cardiff Bay.
You may recall Mr Conway prompted loud cries for reform of MPs’ expenses after it emerged he paid more than £260,000 to members of his immediate family in six years.
Now AMs on the standards committee in Cardiff Bay are grappling with new rules for a public register of any relatives employed by politicians there.
The task is already proving tricky.
After all, how do you define a ‘relative’?
Does it extend to second or third cousins?
And what is employment? Should the register extend to casual employment, say, of a son or daughter, just over the summer recess, with payments of just £5,000?
What if a relative is employed by a fellow AM? Should that be recorded publicly, in case there is an opportunity to cloud the crystal clear transparency of any new rules? (Fiddle it)
The Northern Ireland Assembly is already suggesting a plug for that particular loophole.
There are also issues of privacy and human rights to consider. Could disclosure of employment and pay rates contravene such lofty principles?
One suggested guideline helpfully points out: “For the purposes of Standing Order XX.2(iii) a Member's partner means a spouse, civil partner or one of a couple whether of the same sex or of the opposite sex who although not married to each other are living together and treat each other as spouses.”
The Assembly Commission felt that such a new requirement would give a clear and transparent record of all family members employed by AMs and would be readily accessible by the public.
But it adds: “By introducing a separate record criminal sanctions would not attach to any failure to comply, but by incorporating this within Standing Order 16.1(i), such failure would fall within the remit of the Standards Committee and so allow action to be taken in respect of any breach.”
The standards committee is also tasked with drawing up a protocol on the ‘different roles and responsibilities’ of Assembly constituency members and Assembly regional members - always a sensitive area.
Suggestions include: Assembly constituency members must not describe themselves in a manner which suggests that they are Assembly regional members, and Assembly regional members must not describe themselves in a manner which suggests that they are Assembly constituency members.
There could be tears before bedtime.
PS: Former mid and west Wales AM Glyn Davies points out that partly funding a Cardiff Bay bolthole from expenses can sometimes end in losses.
Citizen wrote...
Whatever the rules are the more innovative will get round them if they want to make a buck or two at our expence. But the big abuse is their second homes in the Bay of which we the tax payers underwrite but they make the profits when they sell. That's why relatively local AMs, who could easily commute home each night like the rest of us, have got in on the act. Dafydd Elis Thomas, the Llywydd of the Assembly is determined to tackle this abuse. I wonder if this is why there's a whispering campaign going on to try to get rid of him. In the immortal words of Corporal Jones, "they don't like it up them!!"
Posted by: Citizen | June 9, 2008 10:18 AM