Westminster's LibDem parliamentary spokespeople make pledges on openness

7.19.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 13th Jun 2009

Mark Blackburn and Naomi Smith, with LibDem shadow chancellor Vince Cable MP. As an outer London MP, Vince could have claimed the second home allowance, but like all LibDem MPs in London he doesn't... not something that could be said of their Labour and Tory counterparts

Westminster's two Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidates Mark Blackburn and Naomi Smith are making a series of pledges on how they would open up their books to local people, if they were to become the local MPs after the next election.

Their six pledges are:

1. We will publish full details of our parliamentary expenses every year on our websites.

2. As our constituencies would be in central London, we will not be eligible (quite rightly) to receive a second homes allowance. You might like to know that no LibDem MP in London claims this allowance, even those who could.

3. We will operate constituency offices for the benefit of local residents. We will publish the details of the cost of these offices on our websites every year.

4. We will publish details of the staff that we employ in the constituency and in Parliament on our website, and we will explain the duties they undertake.

5. We will publish on our websites full details of the salary we receive as MPs.

6. We will treat our MP role as our main and only employment and only undertake additional outside work with the permission of our party leader. Details of all such work will be recorded in the register of interests and published on our websites.