Politicians' expenses: 'MSPs should not blatantly profiteer'

IT is encouraging to see Sir Alan Langlands recommending major changes to the runaway Holyrood gravy train that has become MSPs allowances.

While MSPs in Edinburgh and the Lothians are to be congratulated in claiming only £325,000 in expenses last year – a drop of 12 per cent on the previous year – others have clearly not been so cost-conscious and the country's 129 MSPs managed to lodge claims totalling more than £10.2 million over the same period, five per cent up on the previous year.

The commonly held view is that most politicians milk the system for every penny they can get. As they now claim an average of more than £75,000 each a year in Scotland, who could be blamed for thinking otherwise.

Clearly the most galling area open to abuse is the controversial Edinburgh accommodation allowance, which permits MSPs from outlying areas to claim up to £11,400 of public money each year for rent or towards paying a mortgage in the Capital.

Last year the former presiding officer George Reid suggested that changing this should be the number one priority as part of an overhaul of MSPs' expenses. Former First Minister Jack McConnell agreed with him but until now there has no great motivation to kill the golden goose from which so many MSPs are profiting.

Mr Reid spoke out after it emerged that one of the country's wealthiest MSPs, East Lothian's John Home Robertson, was charging the taxpayer £600 a month to rent a property from his own son even though the flat carried no mortgage.

Another to take advantage of the system was transport minister Tavish Scott who, having bought a £380,000 family home in Edinburgh, charged the public purse £1000 a month in mortgage interest. He had previously claimed rent on a flat owned by his sister, which he subsequently bought and then sold on for a profit of £38,000.

While there was never suggestion either man acted outwith the letter of the rules, questions were asked as to whether they were following the spirit of the arrangement. Sir Alan recommends that MSPs no longer rent from close relatives

While it is only right that MSPs who live too far to commute to and from the parliament should have reasonable accommodation costs met, it should not happen in a way which allows them to blatantly profiteer at the public's expense.

Now it is up to MSPs to show they are willing to put the public interest before personal profit.