Should MP's Get special Fuel rates while the Public suffer

Mr Bod Ask's : Should we put up with rising cost of fuel while the MP's push for a new rate?

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Members of parliament are demanding extra allowances to pay for record petrol prices and rising road taxes, while voters struggle to meet the rising costs of motoring.

The parliamentary panel reviewing MPs’ expenses has received a barrage of complaints that the allowance for using their cars on constituency duty is “ridiculous”.

Travel allowances are being examined in a review of the discredited parliamentary expenses system by a cross-party committee headed by Michael Martin, the Speaker.

MPs receive 40p per mile for the first 10,000 miles by car and 25p per mile thereafter. The rate used to be 72p, but they can claim 350 miles a month — £1,680 a year — without receipts.

Last year Janet Anderson, a Labour MP, caused a furore over her motoring expenses. She claimed £13,851 for driving to and around her Lancashire constituency, equivalent to driving twice round the world.

Nick Harvey, defence spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said MPs acknowledged that any increase would trigger a bitter public backlash, but he added: “A lot of MPs are fed up with the system. We have had quite a lot of people saying we must uprate it.

“The general tone of the submissions has been that it is quite ridiculous that we are effectively subsidising business travel.”

The 40p a mile allowed to MPs is also the official tax-free rate set by the Revenue for all business travel by members of the public. It has been frozen since 2002. According to the AA, the cost of driving a typical car has risen from 51p a mile in 2002 to 59.4 a mile today. If the 40p rate had risen in line with this increase, it should now stand at about 46p.

Volunteer drivers relied on by the National Health Service are among those hardest hit by the six-year freeze. Last month 60 volunteer NHS drivers in Wales withdrew their services for two days to highlight the issue.

Laurence Robertson, Tory MP for Tewkesbury, said the review of the 40p rate should not be restricted to MPs. “It needs looking at for others as well,” he said.