At sixes and sevens on expenses

By David Thompson
Political correspondent, BBC News

Do you find the whole issue of MPs' expenses confusing? Well, worry not, because you are not alone. It appeared on Wednesday that the government was at sixes and sevens on the issue too.

Plans announced by Ms Harman last week were shelved after PMQs

Last week, Harriet Harman, the leader of the House, announced a new set of proposals for monitoring how much, and on what, MPs were spending their allowances - the taxpayers' money given to them so they can do their jobs.

She hailed it as a new era of transparency - there would be a lot more detail about claims than is currently the case.

However there was also provision to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act - meaning they would not have to publish every single receipt for every single thing they bought.

Old-fashioned row

Harriet Harman said that was done to save public money. The Opposition parties said it was simply to allow MPs to evade detailed public scrutiny.

The issue was due to be debated on Thursday and the scene was set for a good, old-fashioned Westminster row.

Once again, the issue of MPs and their expenses has shown its apparently unending ability to embarrass the denizens of the House of Commons

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The stakes were raised when the government said that in response to Tory and Lib Dem plans to vote against the measure, Labour MPs would be ordered to vote for it.

That was the line Downing Street was briefing right up until prime minister's questions - right up until the prime minister himself intervened - and told the Commons there would in fact be a free vote.

It caught everyone on the hop, not least Harriet Harman, whose office was still insisting the vote would be whipped, even after Gordon Brown had spoken.

Then, minutes later, it emerged the whole issue was to be shelved.

Labour said it was because cross-party agreement had broken down. The Tories said there had never been any cross-party agreement in the first place.

They and the Lib Dems claimed the whole thing was a humiliating climbdown by a government. They said the turnaround had happened once ministers realised they would lose Thursday's vote.

Quite why things have reached the stage they have is unclear.

What is glaringly apparent is, once again, the issue of MPs and their expenses has shown its apparently unending ability to embarrass the denizens of the House of Commons, from the prime minister down.