MPs' expense claims - key details
The Daily Telegraph has obtained details of MPs' expenses claims over
the past four years which it has published.
Here is a summary of the claims made by leading politicians and their
reaction to the reports.
Claim: The prime minister paid his brother, Andrew, £6,577 for arranging
cleaning services for his Westminster flat for 26 months. Since
reporting the arrangement, the Telegraph group has clarified that there
"has never been any suggestion of any impropriety on the part of the
Prime Minister or his brother".
Response: No 10 said the two shared a cleaner who worked in both their
flats. Andrew Brown paid her and was reimbursed for his share of the
cost. He did not do the cleaning himself or gain financially.
There was a formal contract for the arrangement, Downing Street sources
add, stipulating the cleaner's hours of work and pay. The cleaner wanted
to be paid by one person for National Insurance purposes.
Claim: Gordon Brown also claimed twice for the same plumbing work within
six months of each other.
Response: The House of Commons Fees Office said the mistake had been
inadvertent and apologised for having not spotted it. Gordon Brown is
understood to have repaid the sum involved - believed to be £150.
JACK STRAW
Claim: The justice secretary over-claimed £1,500 on council tax on his
second home. He made a claim for the full bill despite getting a 50%
discount from the local authority for the property.
Response: A spokesman for Mr Straw said he acted within the rules. He
spotted the mistaken council tax claim himself and repaid the money
himself. Mr Straw later told the BBC: "I have acted in complete good
faith and within the rules. It is an error, which obviously I wish
hadn't happened, but in circumstances in which I was incredibly busy
during that period - that is not an excuse, it is just an explanation.
HAZEL BLEARS
Claim: The communities secretary claimed for three different properties
in a single year, spending almost £5,000 of taxpayers' money on
furniture in three months, the Telegraph reports. She also claimed for
stays at London hotels after selling her flat. In March 2004, she
declared her property in her Salford constituency was her second home
and spent £850 on a television and video and £651 on a mattress. In
April, she switched her second home to a flat in south London, claiming
£850 a month for the mortgage.
In August, she sold the flat, making a £45,000 profit, and stayed in
hotels over the following two months. In December, she bought another
London flat for £300,000, claiming a monthly mortgage of £1,000 and a
grocery bill of £400.
Response: A spokesman for Ms Blears said her claims were all within
parliamentary rules and approved by the Fees Office. Her outlay on
furnishings - such as mattresses and pillows - was "reasonable"
Blears has since admitted she did not pay capital gains tax on the
£45,000 profit from the flat sale. At the time, it was registered as her
main home with the Inland Revenue but she treated it as her second home
for parliamentary expenses purposes. However, she insisted she has
complied with both Commons and Revenue and Customs rules.
GEOFF HOON
Claim: The transport secretary reportedly switched his "second home"
designation - refurbishing his family home in Derbyshire at taxpayers'
expense before buying a London townhouse.
The Telegraph said that in 2004/05, he claimed £20,902 for his second
home - then the Derbyshire home - spending thousands on refurbishments.
At the time he was defence secretary and later Commons leader and had a
"grace and favour" Whitehall apartment. After losing that apartment in
2006, the newspaper says he bought a Georgian townhouse in Westminster
and declared that as his second home. He went on to claim £21,995 in
2006/07 and £23,083 in 2007/8 - the maximum allowed. His monthly
mortgage interest payments, picked up by the taxpayer, increased from
£270 to almost £900.
Response: In a statement, Mr Hoon said he still had "significant costs"
to meet at his grace and favour flat at Admiralty House - although it
was rent free. "These were comparable to the costs I would have incurred
if I had continued to live in my own property, therefore a claim under
the ACA for my constituency home was not unreasonable,
officials told him it was within the rules and similar claims had been
made by previous ministers.
ANDY BURNHAM
Claim: The culture secretary was reportedly battling with the fees
office for eight months over a £16,500 expenses claim to buy and
renovate a new London flat which was eventually paid, after being
rejected three times. He also claimed a £19.99 bath robe bought from
Ikea in 2007 that was not allowed.
Response: Mr Burnham insists he did not profit from the property
transaction. He made only permissible claims and returned a £1,000
surplus to the Fees Office for allowances he did not spend.
On the Ikea receipt, he made a "genuine oversight" on one item. When it
was discovered, he corrected it and he was not reimbursed.
LORD MANDELSON
Claim: The business secretary claimed for improvements on his
constituency home after he announced he was leaving Parliament to become
an EU Commissioner. He later sold the property for a profit of £136,000.
Response: Lord Mandelson rejected claims he used taxpayers' cash to
"renovate" his home for profit, insisting the money was spent on
essential maintenance. He said the Telegraph's report - which details a
£1,500 gardening bill and £1,350 in house repairs - was presented to
provoke public anger. "The fact is that these allowances would not have
been paid if they weren't within the rules," he told BBC Radio Scotland.
PAUL MURPHY
Claim: The Welsh Secretary claimed for a new boiler after saying his
existing hot water system was "too hot".
Response: His old boiler was replaced after it was deemed unsafe and
could not be repaired. All his claims were within the rules and
"assiduously" checked by the authorities.
JOHN PRESCOTT
Claim: The former deputy prime minister claimed £312 for the fitting of
mock Tudor beams to the front of his constituency home in Hull and in
December 2004 a plumber charged him £210.79 for pipework, taps and to
"refix WC seat," according to the newspaper. In September 2006, he put a
£112.52 repair bill on expenses, which included "refit WC seat". He has
not commented so far on the report.
ALISTAIR DARLING
Claim: The chancellor claimed £10,000 towards the cost of furnishing the
London flat he bought in 2005, according to The Telegraph. Mr Darling
bought the £226,000 property near the Oval cricket ground, claiming
£2,074 for furniture and £2,339 for carpets. There was also a £765 claim
from Ikea and £768 from Marks and Spencer's for a bed. The £146 cost of
staying in a hotel while his flat was being renovated in September 2005
was rejected by the fees office on the grounds that the property was
counted as his second home.
But Mr Darling successfully argued that he was "between second homes"
and the bill was later paid. He also used his expenses to cover the
stamp duty of £2,260 and legal fees totalling £1,238.
It was also reported that Mr Darling "switched" the location of his
second home four times in four years, allowing him to claim thousands of
pounds towards the cost of both his Edinburgh home and for the London
flat.
Response: Mr Darling said: "The claims were made within House of Commons
rules which were designed to reflect the fact that MPs have to meet the
cost of living in two places."
SHAUN WOODWARD
Claim: Taxpayers contributed almost £100,000 to help pay the mortgage on
a £1.35m flat owned by the Northern Ireland secretary, it is reported.
The money went on mortgage interest payments and council tax between
2004 and 2008 for the flat. Married to a member of the Sainsbury family
and worth an estimated £15m - Mr Woodward is the richest member of the
cabinet, though he does not draw a full ministerial salary.
Response: The Northern Ireland secretary's spokesman has said the claims
are within the rules and guidelines but Mr Woodward admitted politicians
collectively looked "shameful". He said: "If I try to make almost any
defence of our collective position - or my position - it looks
terrible." However, he added that politicians of all parties "are good
people who try by and large to do a good job" within a "rotten" system.
CAROLINE FLINT
Claim: The Telegraph claims the Europe minister put solicitors' fees and
stamp duty totalling £14,553 on her Parliamentary expenses after buying
a central London flat. Before moving in to her second home in Victoria,
she also claimed the £177 a month cost of putting her furniture in
storage. Over a period of about eight months in 2005 to 2006, Ms Flint
claimed for staying in hotels for an average of three nights a week.
Response: Ms Flint told the Telegraph she had sought advice from Commons
officials at each stage and "never sought to make personal gains from
public funds". She said only about half the cost of her London flat -
including stamp duty - was met through public funds as she had
contributed a "substantial amount" towards the cost of buying it from
the proceeds of a previous flat sale.
DOUGLAS ALEXANDER
Claim: The International Development Secretary's constituency home was
damaged in a house fire in 2007 after he spent more than £30,000 on
repairing it, according to the Telegraph. He told the fees office he was
"under-insured" and claimed almost £2,000 on items lost in the fire,
which he later repaid when his insurers reimbursed him. He has yet to
comment.
MARGARET BECKETT
Claim: Mrs Beckett found herself in trouble with the Fees Office after
attempting to claim £600 for hanging baskets and pot plants. An official
informed her in a letter that expenses had to be "wholly, exclusively
and necessarily incurred to enable you to stay overnight away from your
main home". She claimed second home allowances of £72,537 from 2004 to
2008, despite having no mortgage or rent to pay on her constituency home
in Derby. As environment secretary and foreign secretary, Mrs Beckett
was living at the grace and favour Admiralty House in Whitehall, which
enabled her to rent out her London flat. She is yet to comment on the
allegations.
DAVID MILIBAND
Claim: The foreign secretary claimed almost £30,000 for doing up his
£120,000 constituency home over five years, it was reported. He spent up
to £180 every three months on the garden at the property in South
Shields. He is yet to comment.
BARBARA FOLLETT
Claim: The tourism minister claimed £25,411.64 for security patrols at
her London home after she was mugged. She also requested £528.75 to have
a Chinese needlepoint rug repaired and cleaned but that was deemed
excessive by the Fees Office and she was handed back just £300.
Response: Mrs Follett told the BBC: "I claimed it, it's within the rules
and I have no comment to make." She had earlier told the Telegraph that
only two of the claims she had submitted during the last 12 years had
been disputed and that the one item not accepted had been claimed in
error.
PHIL WOOLAS
Claim: The Telegraph suggested the immigration minister had claimed for
nappies and women's clothing when submitting requests for expenses. It
said it was unclear how these items had been justified because
parliamentary rules only allowed payouts for items which were
"exclusively" for MPs' own use.
Response: Mr Woolas has threatened legal action over the "disgusting"
allegations. He said the items had been on supermarket receipts
submitted as part of a claim for food expenses but that he had never
asked for money for them. Mr Woolas described the expenses records as
"stolen property".
Claim: In response to Mr Woolas' complaints, the Sunday Telegraph
claimed that in August 2004 he had submitted receipts totalling £210.31
for food and was reimbursed in full. However, the paper points out that
the receipts included non-permissible items such as disposable bibs,
nail polish, comics and a ladies jumper.
Response: Mr Woolas said told the newspaper he understood the
extrapolation but insisted he had done nothing wrong. He pointed out
that - under rules at the time - he was not obliged to submit receipts
for food totalling up to £400. "I am being hung out to dry for being
honest," he said.
PHIL HOPE
Claim: Care Services Minister Phil Hope was said to have spent more than
£37,000 over about four years on refurbishing and furnishing a two-
bedroom south London flat.
Response: Mr Hope said his claims for running and furnishing the flat
were "in full accordance with the rules" and that the purchases were "no
more than was necessary to live in a habitable residence". He said he
had only replaced furniture and fittings when they were worn out, had
not bought anything inappropriate for the property and had not
personally benefited.
KEITH VAZ
Claim: The chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee claimed more
than £75,000 to fund a second home in Westminster, even though his
family home is just 12 miles away in Stanmore. The Telegraph also
suggested he changed his designated second home for a single year to
property in his Leicester constituency, before claiming more than £4,000
on furnishings.
Response: Mr Vaz told the BBC he lived in Leicester and that his second
home was in Westminster. He has had a Westminster flat since becoming an
MP in 1987. He made no claim for the Stanmore home, which he acquired on
getting married and was - he pointed out - not in central London. "It's
on junction 4 of the M1 and I keep the Westminster flat for early
morning meetings as do many MPs who live in that block," he said.
BEN BRADSHAW
Claim: A health minister, the Telegraph claimed he had switched his
second home designation to a more expensive jointly-owned London
property and claimed full mortgage interest payments, in order for his
partner to "benefit from the system". The couple had previously split
the mortgage costs, the paper said. However, it claimed that Mr Bradshaw
was now submitting the entire cost of interest on the property to be
paid out of expenses.
Response: Exeter MP Mr Bradshaw told the BBC he had always claimed for
their London home and only briefly switched to claiming for his
constituency property between 2003 and 2006, because of a temporary rule
telling ministers to claim constituency rather than London costs. The
minister said before he and his partner entered into a civil partnership
in 2006 he had claimed only a proportion of the mortgage interest - even
though he would have been entitled to claim it all. Since then, he had
claimed for and paid the full mortgage interest on their London
property, as the rules allowed, he said. He added that he always
submitted comparatively low claims and had long called for reform of the
expenses system.
MARGARET MORAN
Claim: According to the Telegraph, the Labour MP for Luton South spent
£22,500 treating dry rot at the coastal property in Southampton she had
designated as her second home - even though it was a two-hour drive from
Parliament and 100 miles from her constituency.
Response: Ms Moran said her partner had worked in Southampton for 20
years and that she could not "make him come to Luton all the time". She
said: "I have to have a proper family life and I can't do that unless I
share the costs of the Southampton home with him." She said all her
claims were within Fees Office policy and that she had done nothing
wrong. Ms Moran said there had been some "inaccuracies" which were
"probably actionable" in the Telegraph reports, which had given "the
incredibly misleading impression that somehow we have been dodgy, that
we have been fraudulent or corrupt".
KITTY USSHER
Claim: Within a year of being elected in 2005, Ms Ussher is said to have
set out to the Commons authorities over two pages a list of "essential
repairs" to her Victorian house in south London. It detailed how the
house "was relatively cheap to purchase but requires quite a lot of
work". Among the work listed was replacing "rotten" sash windows and a
"grimy" stair carpet. She received the full £22,110 allowance, although
her requests to replace "strange" plumbing and "bad taste" Artex were
refused. The Sunday Telegraph claimed she had already lived in the house
for five years.
Response: The work and pensions minister's spokesman said Ms Ussher
"fully supports" the review into MPs' expenses claims and believed it
was right that MPs expenses' claims should be published. "All her claims
were in line with the relevant House of Commons rules and guidance and
have been approved by the Fees Office," he said.
KEVIN BRENNAN
Claim: It is claimed the junior minister had a £450 widescreen
television delivered to his family home in Wales and then claimed it on
his allowance for his second home in London.
Response: Mr Brennan, Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Cabinet
Office, told the Telegraph the television and other items submitted on
his additional costs allowance, such as Ikea furnishings and crockery
from Next, were not bought for his Cardiff home.
IAIN WRIGHT AND TOM WATSON
Claim: The two Labour ministers have claimed more than £100,000 for a
shared London flat since May 2005, according to the Telegraph. The
ministers each claimed for their share of the legal costs involved in
purchasing the property and then later for the fees to buy the freehold.
Neither minister has yet responded.
BARRY GARDINER
Claim: The MP for Brent North made a profit of almost £200,000 from a
flat mortgaged and renovated with the help of taxpayers' cash, the
Telegraph has alleged. He is yet to respond.
VERA BAIRD QC
Claim: The Solicitor General - one of the government's top legal
advisers - was refused a £268 claim for Christmas decorations.
Response: Ms Baird insists she has broken no rules.
STEPHEN BYERS
Claim: The former Trade Secretary used the expenses system to claim more
than £125,000 for the London flat owned by his partner, it is claimed.
Over the past five years, Mr Byers is said to have spent more than
£27,000 on redecoration, maintenance and appliances at flat in Camden,
north London, and extensively renovated the outside of the entire
building, which consists of four flats.
Response: Mr Byers told the Sunday Telegraph all his claims were within
the rules and had been approved by Commons authorities.
JOHN REID
Claim: The Telegraph has suggested the former Home Secretary claimed for
a £199 pouffe, a £370 armchair and an £899 sofa. He is also said to have
submitted receipts for £486.50 spent at Marks and Spencer last August on
items including slotted spoons, three rattan bins, oven mitts,
wineglasses and ice cube trays. His expenses claim for 2007-08 also
included a letter from the TV Licensing authority warning the occupier
of the property "there is no valid television licence". Mr Reid is yet
to respond.
TONY BLAIR
Claim: The former Prime Minister used his parliamentary expenses to
remortgage his constituency home for £296,000 - nearly 10 times what he
paid for it - just months before buying a west London house for £3.65m.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the loan would have been enough to
cover the cost of the deposit on the new home. It said he was able to
claim for interest repayments on almost a third of the new mortgage on
his constituency home.
Response: His spokesman told the newspaper Mr Blair only claimed back
the interest repayments on the portion of the mortgage which covered the
purchase price and improvements to the house. There was no cost to the
taxpayer in the rest of the money raised against the property, he added.
GREG BARKER
Claim: Mr Barker was said to have bought a flat with the help of
taxpayers' money and sold it after just 27 months at a £320,000 profit.
Response: The shadow climate change minister said the Telegraph had not
taken into account the fact he had invested a "very substantial six-
figure sum" of his own money into the house, which he had not claimed
back. "It would be completely inaccurate and untrue for the Telegraph to
allege that the difference in purchase and sale price represented a
profit," he said.
JOHN GUMMER
Claim: The former Tory cabinet minister claimed £9,000 a year for
gardening, according to the Sunday Telegraph. It says he charged the
taxpayer hundreds of pounds for treating insect "infestations"
moles and jackdaw nests from his Suffolk property, and for an annual
"rodent service", the paper said. It was reported Mr Gummer initially
claimed around £200 a month towards the interest on the £60,000 mortgage
on his constituency home but that when other expenses were added he
claimed close to the maximum of over £20,000 most years.
Response: Mr Gummer said his London property was designated his main
residence when he was a minister and is the family home. In relation to
his constituency home, he had "only ever claimed the relevant proportion
of the costs of necessary maintenance and repairs of an old rural
property". This included a "significant part" of the gardening expense.
Mr Gummer said he had always believed the allowance should not be used
for capital gain, food or furniture, had paid his own mortgage for most
of his Commons career and had one of the lowest overall claims in the
house.
SINN FEIN
Claim: The Sunday Telegraph suggested five Sinn Fein MPs had claimed a
total of almost £500,000 in second home expenses by renting three London
properties from the same family "at above the market norm". Both party
president Gerry Adams and Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin
McGuinness claimed £3,600 per month to rent a shared two-bedroom flat in
north London. This was despite the fact the MPs refuse to take up their
Commons seats.
Response: A party spokesman denied any wrongdoing and said its MPs did
not buy property and so benefit from price rises. "It is widely known
that Sinn Fein MPs travel regularly to London on parliamentary business
and utilise the accommodation that we rent when there," he said. The
spokesman added that the rent included parking, bills and housekeeping,
which ordinary market rents did not.
THE 'MODEST' CLAIMANTS
Three cabinet members in particular are singled out for their "modest"
claims under the second homes allowance by the Telegraph. Energy
Secretary Ed Miliband had only put in claims for £6,300 a year in rent
for his constituency home and for utility and council tax bills. Health
Secretary Alan Johnson rented a "modest" property but claimed for food
and some furniture. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn claimed only
£147.78 for food from the allowance which allows MPs to claim up to
about £24,000 a year.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.
Published: 2009/05/10 13:42:09 GMT
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