Expenses row eating away at the credibility of Parliament

MPs should do “whatever it takes” to stop rows over their expenses “eating away at the credibility of Parliament”, a cabinet minister has said.

Iain Duncan Smith was speaking after the independent parliamentary watchdog said MPs should “no longer mark their own homework” on ethics.

It comes after a committee of MPs overruled investigators probing Culture Secretary Maria Miller's expenses.

I agree with the watchdog in that MPs shouldn’t mark their own homework on ethics because if you look at the evidence that approach clearly hasn’t worked.

If you think back to the original expenses scandal only a few MPs, most of whom nobody had heard of outside, in fact probably inside, their constituencies had to pay back a small percentage of what they claimed, a few had to resign and I think one might have gone to jail for a few weeks, which when you consider there were hundreds on the fiddle that’s a pretty lame response to widespread wrongdoing that went on.  

I also disagree with IDS because the credibility of Parliament has mostly been eaten away already, there maybe a few scraps left but I don’t think one more MP being accused of wrongdoing is going to change anything.

One way credibility could be improved is by MPs not being allowed to mark their own homework, but another better way would be that they follow the rules and do their jobs properly, that might be the way forward.