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Expenses
I believe in freedom of information.
MPs are public servants and as our salaries and expenses are paid for by the public purse it is only fair that we should open up our books so that you can see how your money has been spent.
When MP's expenses are published each year, they are often accompanied by much criticism about the amount of money spent in running our offices. It is only correct that members should be held to account if they abuse their positions to their advantage. However, it is also important to bear in mind exactly what that money pays for when judging expenditure.
In many ways, an MP's office is like a small business, except we have much more incoming business than outgoing! With my constituency counting roughly 65.000 people, a huge amount of work is generated every week. People want solutions quickly and I always work to ensure progress on each case is made as fast as possible. But any comparison with the private sector shows just how difficult it can be sometimes to service so many demands when we are so short of staff.
I have 4 members of staff employed on a permanent basis: a research assistant in Westminster who deals mainly with parliamentary matters, including press, briefings for speeches and questions and keeps me up to date with what's happening in Parliament. In the constituency, I employ a secretary and 2 caseworkers, who works under my instruction in doing the groundwork involved in solving constituents' problems.
I travel up and down to London each week, which takes roughly four hours. It's a long journey but it's more or less average in terms of MP's travel times across the country. Most of my travel expenses therefore go on petrol or rail tickets or paying for my staff to travel between London and the constituency, when it is needed. Being an MP, living more than 170 miles from London also means that we have to maintain a second residence in the capital, for which most of us wouldn't otherwise have a need, so we get help with that too.
So here is a list of my expenses for the full years since I became an MP.
Roger Williams expenses [external site: theyworkforyou.com]
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