Bryn Trefil
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MP slams £450k expenses secrecy op | Quote: | A GWENT MP who uncovered the cost of blacking-out information on members’ expenses said the £450,000 spent on it was “lunacy.”
Blaenau Gwent MP Dai Davies put in a written question at parliamentary questions asking how much of taxpayers’ money was spent on the exercise the government refers to as redaction.
The total spent so far on keeping the information from the public, which was carried out by The Stationery Office, (TSO) is £451,966.
Mr Davies said: “I was quite amazed at the cost of redaction, all they’re doing is checking it and putting a line through stuff - that sort of money is enormous. If government was a business, you’d shut it down.”
The publication of all 646 MP’s expenses over the past four years came following a series of damaging articles in the Daily Telegraph after the newspaper was leaked the full details of MPs’ claims.
The Independent MP said members should simply be paid a wage and expenses should be handled by a central, human-resources-style department.
He added: “To spend almost £500,000 on blacking out information is lunacy. The whole system is barking mad, it’s doing politics no favours whatsoever. It’s huge amounts of money that constituencies like mine could make much better use of then blacking out things on a piece of paper.”
As the published claims and redaction only cover until the end of March, Mr Davies said the final figure could rise to beyond £750,000, which he described as “an absolute disgrace.”
A spokeswoman for the House of Commons Commission said: "It was obviously complex and time consuming and has been costly in producing this, but it was done in order to provide the information required, which was meeting our obligation under Freedom of Information, but protecting personal data, which is also the responsibility of the House to do."
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stevey, Ebbw Vale says...
5:21pm Sat 4 Jul 09
Right once again Dai, but you will still have the sour-grape, Labour-supporting moaners ignoring this and critising you almost weekly in the Gwent Gazette.
http://tinylink.com/?zcdHPAH8bP
We don't have enough money to cover the new health plans 
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