The House of Commons has today published details of MPs expense claims from 2004/05 up to 2007/08.

You can find electronic copies of every one of Karen’s receipts by following the link below:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/

Details that are sensitive such as the private addresses of staff and interns, names of suppliers, and credit/visa card numbers have been “redacted” – blocked out in black – due to privacy issues.

On Monday 17th June Karen hosted an event in parliament for local Headteachers and Chairs of Governors to introduce them to the award winning social enterprise ‘Women Like Us’ which Karen has long supported.

The organisation was recently commissioned by Westminster City Council to offer employment services to mum’s in local schools.

‘Women Like Us’ is an organisation which specialises in helping women with children to find part-time work and giving them practical support to make work and familiy fit together.

The organisation offers practical support and advice to women who want to get a job but don’t know where to start, through outreach in primary schools, information and guidance, coaching programmes and a recruitment service, which specialises in part time work.

Women Like Us partners with over 160 schools in London across 24 boroughs and they have over 10,000 women registered to use their service to date. They are dedicated to supporting women regain their confidence, enabling them to achieve their goal of finding flexible work they can fit around their caring responsibilities.

On 2nd June Karen introduced a Private Members Bill which seeks to repeal existing laws that allow bailiffs to forcibly enter households to recover unpaid criminal fines. The Bill aims to protect vulnerable people from the effects of disproportionate enforcement. It will have its second reading on Friday 16th October.

Last month the Justice Secretary Jack Straw decided not to proceed with Government plans to extend bailiffs’ powers to use force when entering a home and seizing goods to settle civil debts.

Karen’s Bill aims to go further and repeal the existing laws which still provide Bailiffs with the right to use force over unpaid criminal fines.

With personal debt rising, more and more people risk finding bailiffs on their doorstep. At present bailiffs can use force for fines such as for non-payment of a TV licence or motoring offence. This can be very distressing for those who experience it  (see: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6194133.ece).

For the past 400 years prior to the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act entry to a person’s home had to be peaceful.

Karen’s Bill aims to get us back to this state of affairs, provide greater protection for vulnerable clients, and therefore prevent the increased risk of mental illness that too frequently is the result of debt or fines enforced with threats of breaking into someone’s home and which costs the NHS more than heart disease, cancer or obesity.

You can read Karen’s statement  to the House of Commons introducing the Bill below:

Bailiffs (Repeals and Amendments)

Ms Karen Buck (Regent’s Park and Kensington, North) (Lab): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make requirements in respect of the use of force and forcible entry by bailiffs; to make provision for the reference to court of certain cases involving vulnerable clients; and for connected purposes.

The recession of the past 18 months has painfully demonstrated the precariousness of many people’s financial situation. Debt and debt recovery action have become a reality for ever larger numbers of people, and the arrival of a bailiff is, for many of those people, the ultimate trauma and humiliation. Indeed, we know of cases in which people have had heart attacks when the bailiffs have arrived. The mental and physical stress that people undergo is one of the worst things that will ever happen to them in their life.

Of course, bailiffs and debt recovery mechanisms have to be used. There are always people who abuse trust, neglect their finances and refuse to engage with their creditors, and, ultimately, they must pay an appropriate price. Indeed, in my constituency role, some examples have been brought to my attention whereby bailiffs have intervened with their clients and been helpful in the extreme. They have been informative and sympathetic, and they have helped people with their predicament. Yet the truth is that many of those subject to such enforcement action are desperate and vulnerable people, and many are also victims of error. For them, even the actions of bailiffs who behave entirely reasonably—and they do not always do that—are disproportionate and excessive.

As I do more and more work with constituents who owe money and I learn more about the process of debt recovery and the enforcement of fines, it has become clear to me that we have got the balance wrong, and that we need to review urgently the position that we are in. We must certainly not, in any circumstances, think of escalating the powers available to bailiffs, and the Government should rethink their approach to regulation.

The bailiff at the door has been an image in literature for many years; it was a common motif in Dickens novels—but it is not a rare visitation on the feckless and the spendthrift, but an occurrence of staggering frequency. In my local authority alone, and in respect of just one debt—arrears of council tax—more than 13,000 cases ended up in the hands of bailiffs over a three-year period. The council has stated that 9 per cent. of council tax accounts—almost one in 10—end up in enforcement action. That is a staggering proportion.

What does it mean to be on the receiving end of such action? It means fear and trauma for people, particularly children. I have heard of moving cases in which children have refused to leave the house or have insisted on having the lights out at home because they are so frightened of a bailiff coming and seizing their television or computer. Being on the receiving end also means an escalation of the original debt, which simply compounds the problems that caused the financial crisis in the first place. Only last week I had to intervene in the case of a single parent with three children, one of whom is disabled.

Her parking fine, about which I was making representations, had escalated from an original £60 to £700 by the time the bailiffs arrived.

Another constituent wrote to tell me that she had two sets of bailiffs chasing the same debt. Payments had been made to and acknowledged by the council, but did not then appear on the system. She wrote:

“This has left me in a desperate state—each party refers me to the other, the fees are ever increasing and two companies are threatening the removal of goods for the same amount.”

Some people are the victims of mistaken identity, while others are the victims of identity fraud. I have had cases in which action has been taken against one person because of another person’s criminality. The point is that there is a lack of proportionality in the response, given the likelihood of those at the receiving end being vulnerable, or victims of mistaken identity.

The representations that I seek to make to Ministers through the Bill are threefold. The power of forcible entry into a person’s home and the power for bailiffs even to use force against debtors are far too extreme to be given to civilian enforcement officers. The balance has been tilted too far against the householder’s right to be secure from trespass into their home. The present position overturns a long-standing common law tradition, by which a bailiff peacefully entering a property could not be prevented from going about his or her task. The emphasis was very much on an acceptance of that right in certain cases, but obviously the tradition stopped short of forceful entry.

The powers taken by the Government in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 have not been brought into effect by regulation, and we await the regulations that will implement them. However, I believe that it is now clear that such powers should be repealed. Their excessive harshness should not be left on the statute book, even with an indication that the Government do not intend to implement them at present. The powers should be removed entirely.

Of course, the power to enter domestic premises forcibly to enforce the collection of criminal fines is already legal, and that too is creating appalling distress for many vulnerable households. Many of the criminal fines are levied on people on low incomes for offences such as the non-payment of TV licences, fare dodging and truancy. These are indeed offences, and it is only right that if an offence is deemed to have occurred, a penalty must be applied. However, the issue here, too, is one of proportionality, in terms of the sums involved and the manner of the enforcement deployed.

I also seek a statutory procedure requiring bailiffs to return cases involving vulnerable and impoverished debtors to the courts or the creditors, and powers to allow people subject to any bailiff action to apply to the courts for any bailiff warrant to be suspended—something that is missing from the 2007 Act. At present, that recourse is available only to people subject to county court bailiff warrants. People subject to bailiff warrants who have not been subject to county court applications have to rely on the good will and discretion of the creditor.

Some bailiffs and courts rely on case law, which holds that a distress warrant cannot be withdrawn once it has been issued. That directly contradicts the national standards for enforcement agents, which suggests a procedure enabling the bailiff to return cases of vulnerable fine defaulters to the court. The procedure to bypass this anomaly recommended by the Ministry of Justice is to write a letter to the court asking for a re-hearing of the case. In practice, however, neither bailiffs nor fine defaulters seem to know this, and disproportionate fines are being paid by benefit claimants and other low-income groups, intensifying the poverty that pushed many of them into debt in the first place. My Bill would clear up the anomaly by enabling bailiffs to return vulnerable cases to the courts and creditors for reconsideration.

Finally, we need a statutory provision for bailiffs to accept “affordable payments”, with a definition of what that might mean in practice, so that before goods are seized or payment in full is demanded, an assessment is made of what can practically be afforded, at least in a single payment. By way of illustration, one of my constituents wrote to me a few weeks ago in the following terms:

“I received a letter on the 10th of January notifying me that the bailiffs were to visit my house that same day, with regards to £191 arrears of Council Tax. I explained to someone in their office that I was not aware of that debt as I did not live at that address anymore. I made an arrangement to pay the money I did owe in instalments, the last of which—£63—was due on Easter Monday. I had no money at all, and called their office to make an arrangement. They said that unless I paid £195 today the bailiffs would come and carry my goods. I requested him to take the payment of £63 which clears my account, but he said the bailiffs will still come and carry my goods because I made the payment late and incurred a charge of £131!”

This treatment of people simply will not do.

My purpose today is not to put bailiffs in the firing line: some are good, some are bad, but all are operating in a framework that is not as it should be. Likewise, I am not singling out my own council, Westminster, for although I think that it makes too liberal a use of bailiffs, and it has certainly not developed the comprehensive advice and debt service that the local population needs, I do not think that it is uniquely bad. Indeed, I would commend officers in the finance department for the quality of service that they have offered to me in helping to deal with many of the difficult cases that I put to them. Nevertheless, we do have a grave problem with debt and debt recovery services, with disproportionately harsh penalties being applied to hundreds of thousands—if not millions, over years—of some of the most vulnerable people in the country. I believe that they need greater protection, and above all, to be freed from the fear of the implementation of the excessively harsh powers held in reserve in the legislation.

Dear Constituent,

The disclosure of MPs expense claims and the highly publicised cases involving at best laxity and at worst outright abuse of the second home allowances has badly damaged the reputation of parliament and politics. There is understandable public outrage at practices ranging from claims for moat cleaning and chandeliers to ‘flipping’ the address against which claims are made to increase income or reduce tax.

This is sad because many MPs, including myself, have used their allowances solely on staff, office, and administrative costs in order to improve their work as representatives - work which, in my case, has involved taking up issues and concerns on behalf of more than 30,000 constituents.

The rules on permissible expenses which have been in place since the 1980s obviously  have to be torn up and redrawn. As part of this process, we aim to end the absurdity of MPs voting for our own pay and conditions, and bring in fully independent oversight. This process has now begun and must be completed as a matter of urgency.

Meanwhile, individual MPs have to account for themselves where there has been abuse, error or inappropriate expenditure.

In some cases, this may lead to repayment , dismissal or de-selection. Each of us is also, of course, subject to the scrutiny of the media and the electorate.

As far as my personal circumstances are concerned I would like you to know that:

• As a central London MP who has lived in the constituency I represent for the last twenty five years I do not receive anything under the so-called ‘Additional Costs allowance,’ which covers mortgage interest or rent, utility bills, council tax  or furnishings.

• My only travel claim is for public transport to allow to me to travel back and forth from the constituency to Westminster.

• I make no claims for food, taxis, or for entertaining guests at Parliament or elsewhere. The only direct claim I make is for my mobile phone bills (but not my home phone, although this is used extensively for work).

• Lastly, the allowances I have drawn on – incidental expenses and communications – have been spent solely on employing staff; paying their National Insurance contributions, office rent/rates and maintenance, phone bills, printing and distribution  costs (such as for my annual report), and sundry items such as printer cartridges, paper, and some out-of pocket expenses incurred by interns and volunteers.

I hope this provides you with all the answers you need when it comes to my expenses.

A breakdown of my expenses for the year 2007/8 is contained within my annual report and is also available on the website  should you require further information.

As a stop-gap measure till such time as I receive a summarised version of my expenses for the year 2008/9 I have asked local journalists to come into my office and inspect the full files for the last four years (which run to over 300 pages) and write freely about what they find.

As always, if you need help on any issue please contact me using the details on this site.

Yours sincerely,

Karen Buck MP

Child Poverty Action Group – a leading charity campaigning for the abolition of child poverty in the UK and for a better deal for low-income families and children – has named Karen as the May addition to their shortlist for MP of the Year.

CPAG makes the nominations on the basis of the individual they believe has made the most important contribution to the child poverty agenda and welfare rights in the preceding two months. The winner will be chosen from the shortlist at the end of 2009.

Karen Buck was chosen for the May 2009 issue for her standout speech at the Report Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill; and her article for the influential Labour campaign group, Progress, calling on the Chancellor to recognise that ending child poverty is not only a moral imperative but can also help us beat the recession by providing low-income families with money to spend in their local communities.

Commenting on the nomination, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, Kate Green, said: “Karen is a tireless campaigner on child poverty in parliament. Her article calling for the Budget to help struggling families in the recession was an important reminder of the economic sense it makes to boost the cash economies of communities feeling the crunch most of all. Her impressive speech when MPs debate new welfare reforms cut through party politics to the heart of the problems lone parents face who want work, but will not be guaranteed the support and childcare needed to get a decent job.”

To see more details visit:

http://www.cpag.org.uk/campaigns/CPAGcampaignNewsMay2009.pdf.

In a few weeks time Karen will introduce a Ten-Minute Rule Bill which will seek to repeal existing laws that allow bailiffs to forcibly enter households to recover unpaid criminal fines and will aim protect vulnerable people from the effects of disproportionate enforcement.

You can hear a Radio 4 interview with Karen debating the issue today by clicking on the ‘latest programme’ tab at the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/