Lincoln MP Karl McCartney’s name might cost the taxpayer up to £15,000 – all because he wants it to be spelt with a superscript ‘c’.
While the change – which the parliamentarian says is the “correct” version – has already been made in some order papers, it remains as ‘McCartney’ in Hansard, the official record of all parliamentary proceedings.
A Freedom of Information request by the Huffington Post found that to correct it to ‘McCartney’ in Hansard’s old systems, as well as on Parliament’s website, would cost between £10,000 and £15,000.
The reform would also include supporting other special characters, including umlauts.
Yet Karl said the change was taking a “terribly slow” time to come to fruition, with Parliament’s administrators failing to keep him updated on the costs or difficulty of the work.
He told The Linc: “Over 5 years ago when I was elected I asked for my name to appear correctly in House of Commons’ publications.
“Whilst I have been kept informed of the terribly slow progress by the House Administration, I am aware that the Order Paper change was achieved relatively easily. We still await the Hansard documents being brought into the late 20th Century, and possibly the 21st…
“At no point have I specifically asked for the House of Commons’ website to reflect how my name should appear, nor have I been informed of the likely costs of such work (I am sure as the magic IT word is involved, they will be shockingly high), nor have I been consulted at any point, nor updated on the specific issue.”
Officials have yet to decide whether the money should be spent, with an ongoing ‘impact assessment’ set to provide a firmer estimate of how long the project would take and how much it would cost.
A previous Freedom of Information request revealed that changes made to represent Karl’s name correctly have cost £422.50 so far.