Derek Conway: still getting an extra £13,000 a year

The Independent has the latest on the controversial Conservative MP who isn’t doing badly financially out of all the fuss about his expenses. Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, does not come out of this well:

The disgraced Conservative MP Derek Conway will keep his place among a group of MPs paid a £13,000-a-year bonus for chairing parliamentary proceedings. Mr Conway’s political career was apparently in ruins after he was suspended from the Commons after being criticised for employing his son as a researcher.

But he has retained a prestigious and lucrative position as a member of the “chairmen’s panel” appointed by the Speaker Michael Martin to oversee detailed debates on Bills…

Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, said: “I find it very surprising he is still in that position and nobody has seen fit to question it.”

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg is calling for the review into MPs’ expenses to be beefed up:

Pressure is mounting on the Speaker, Michael Martin, to take a tougher line on MPs’ expenses amid fears that the review he ordered following the Derek Conway affair will not produce radical reforms…

The Liberal Democrats will next week call for the group to take evidence from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the anti-sleaze body. Nick Clegg, the party’s leader, believes this would give the Commons’ own review expert advice and, crucially, an independent element.