Conflict of interest?

From today’s Independent.

The ACA, [Additional Costs Allowance] which is available to MPs with constituencies outside inner London, currently costs taxpayers £11m a year. Although this would rise to £14m if all 646 MPs were awarded a £22,000 salary boost, the net cost would be lower because it would be taxable.

MPs who support scrapping the ACA will ask a review of expenses set up last week by the Commons Speaker Michael Martin to consider incorporating it into their pay packets.

Mark Field, Tory MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, said there was growing support among MPs for the housing allowance to be rolled into salaries. He said that recent publicity about the loopholes in the system had been “an accident waiting to happen”.

So that’s an MP who doesn’t get the Additional Costs Allowance arguing that it should be abolished for those MPs who currently get it, and replaced by an across the board pay rise for all MPs.

 Mark Field is a Conservative. This may explain the lack of understanding of irony on his part.

Mark Field has two paid jobs besides his parliamentary work. Mark is fond of travelling to China at the Chinese government’s expense.

There may be other people better qualified to contribute to this debate.