By KUNA
London : Labour MPs were preparing Wednesday to declare “as soon as possible” details of any family members employed from public funds, parliamentary sources said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said yesterday that he did not want them to wait for the April 1 deadline proposed by the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee for details of relatives’ employment to be registered.
His move came after the main opposition Conservative leader David Cameron told his 96-strong frontbench team to declare more details of their expenses claims.
Brown revealed his initiative in a letter to House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin, the chairman of the Members Estimate Committee (MEC), which last Monday night announced a root-and-branch review of expenses.
The Prime Minister gave his backing to the MEC review, which will not report until after MPs return from their summer recess in October.
The review by the MEC, which brings together senior MPs from all three major political parties, was announced in response to last week’s furore over Conservative MP Derek Conway’s employment of his sons as assistants, paid from parliamentary expenses.
In yesterday’s letter to Martin, the Prime Minister wrote “I believe it is essential that we use this opportunity to achieve a root-and-branch overhaul of the current system and deliver new mechanisms and procedures which can meet the public’s expectation for greater transparency and for propriety”.
“The public need to be reassured that all taxpayers’ money used to support MPs in their work both in Parliament and in their constituencies has been properly spent and accounted for, not just in the future but in the past, and not just for ministers and shadow ministers but for all MPs”.
Brown told the Speaker of the House of Commons he hoped the MEC’s review of office staff, expenses and other allowances would be “a deliberative and orderly process which delivers genuine and lasting reform”.
And the Prime Minister said he did not want “a quick fix which would fail to solve the problem in the long term”.