England

News.telegraph

A Council Seat Will Buy You Child Care, says MP
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
13/10/2005

A millionaire female MP was criticised yesterday for suggesting that more women could become councillors by using their generous allowances to pay for cleaners or child care.

Lynne Featherstone, whose family once owned part of the Ryness chain of electrical stores, said getting elected as a councillor was "great, not just for its political benefit but because the money allows you to employ a cleaner, pay for more babysitting hours, etc.

"You can't buy more hours in the day but you can pay for others to do things that free your time."

Miss Featherstone, 53, a single parent, is the Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and a councillor in Haringey, north London, where she is entitled to claim £8,500 in allowances for her duties.

Richard Milner, a Labour councillor and Haringey's chief finance spokesman, said her comments showed she was "out of touch" with voters.

"To say it is OK to use council taxpayers' money to fund politicians' cleaners is staggering," he said.

"This is not about gender. This is about a patronising view of voters. I expect nothing less from a millionairess.

"If you have no money, you are not thinking about how to get a cleaner, you are thinking about how to live and how to get your children to school. If you need money, there are plenty of jobs that are better for people than being a councillor."

Miss Featherstone said she was simply trying to encourage more women into politics and if more women knew about the allowances they were entitled to, more would come forward.
The mother of two added that she stood by her speech, made at a training session for women at the Liberal Democrat Party conference last month.

"I want women to come into public life. One of the reasons they do not even think about it is that they cannot even get out of the house. They are often just left with the cleaning, baby-sitting and cooking.

"For some that means hiring child care so they can get out in the evening to meetings. For others, yes, that means hiring a cleaner."

She added: "I have a cleaner to help me around the house. I have two children and I am a single parent so it would be very difficult otherwise."

Miss Featherstone lives in a four-bedroom house in Highgate, north-west London. Her children are aged 16 and 21 and she said she had to hire a babysitter every time she wanted to go out when she started in politics "They were 11 and six when I was first selected to stand for Parliament," she said.

She made a name for herself during four years as a London Assembly member and became an MP in the general election by unseating Barbara Roche, the former Labour minister, and overturning a 10,500 Labour majority.

Miss Featherstone said women were sorely needed in politics because they bring "a voice of reason, practicality and an ability to listen".

In a "blog" (a personal internet journal), she describes her life as an MP and councillor, an extract of which reads: "Off to my surgery in Hornsey Vale community centre where - as always - I am constantly amazed by the range of problems that present. Finish at 7pm and go to my constituency office to sign things.

"Get home about 9pm to watch the news on the Tory beauty parade - a misnomer if ever there was one."

MPs are paid around £60,000 but are entitled to generous allowances including a "staffing" payment of up to £84,081, "incidental expenses" up to a maximum of £20,000 to cover such costs as office accommodation and computers, a £2,613 London allowance in some cases and an "additional costs allowance" of £21,634 which provides for when they have to stay away overnight on parliamentary duties.