Show us the money

13 June 2008

Giles Chichester's resignation from the leadership of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, and the travails of other Tories in Brussels and Strasbourg, has shone a light on how MEPs can manage their expenses, writes Stephen Gardner. Under Parliament rules, MEPs can appoint 'paying agents', who manage the cash they get for office expenses and staff costs – around £35,000 annually for the former, and £135,000 for the latter. Chichester's mistake was to have money paid to his company, which is forbidden under EU rules. But what really is the difference between this and contracting a close family member as a paying agent? Celebrity Labour MEP Michael Cashman (he used to be in Eastenders), for example, has since at least 2002, as documents seen by Eurocorrespondent.com show, had the entire assistants' allowance paid to his civil partner Paul Cottingham, who acts as paying agent. Cashman is not alone. Goggle-eyed climate-change-denying Tory Roger Helmer has his wife as paying agent. UKIP's Gerard Batten admits to “occasionally” using the professional services of a family member in this respect, according to research done by the think tank Open Europe. MEPs, by the way, proportionally have a far greater propensity to employ family members as assistants than members of the House of Commons in the UK. The European Parliament is banning this practice after the 2009 Euro elections, meaning P45s all round for the assorted spouses of Sir Robert Atkins, Giles Chichester (yes it's him again!), Richard Corbett, Nigel Farage, Chris Heaton-Harris, Neil Parish, Charles Tannock, Gary Titley, Geoffrey Van Orden, Diana Wallis, Graham Watson and at least eight other UK MEPs. A version of this article originally appeared in Private Eye.

 

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