In 2007-8 prior to the expenses revelations I promised to cut my total costs as an MP by 10% in 2008-9 and by a further 10% in 2009-10. I thought this could be done, even though I was a well below average claimer. I felt public spending was too high and MPs needed to show how it could be reduced sensibly. I have now found the final figures for 2009-10 for all MPs on the Guardian website, so can bring constituents up to date on expenses for those years.
I did cut my costs by 11.6% in the first year, and by a further 20% in the second year. The total claims of £75,015 in 2009-10 were 29% lower than two years earlier.
My claim of £75,015 in 2009-10 compares to an average MP’s claim of £140,456 in 2009-10.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College, and has a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.
3 Comments
Congratulations, and thank you for setting such a good example for your colleagues! The Taxpayers’ Alliance just highlighted the fine example of one local council making substantial efficiency savings to balance the books in a similar vein – I just hope this can be spread more widely now.
So, if the average MP behaves like the public sector, and you John, eptiomise the private sector, we get the ratio many of us have been bannging on about for years – it takes twice the input to get the same out of the public sector as it does the private sector. That is to say nothing of the quality of the end result….
John, you represent great value for money. Keep it up.
I guess that some of the Mp’s expenses include wages for staffing at the constituancy office, If you have included for such in these figures, then that is an even better result.
Reply: Yes it includes that