The Voice

Clegg: make MPs sell second homes to benefit taxpayer

By | Thu 9th April 2009 - 12:01 am

The Times’s Sam Coates has the story:

MPs should be forced to sell their second homes and return most of the profits to the taxpayer, under plans to be put forward by the Liberal Democrat leader. Nick Clegg moves to outflank both Gordon Brown and David Cameron today with the toughest suggestions to date in the effort to end the damaging row over MPs’ perks and allowances.

Under Mr Clegg’s proposals, to be put forward at a meeting with the Labour and Conservative leaders, MPs would no longer be able to claim mortgage interest payments on expenses and would be compensated only for rental payments. …

Mr Clegg told The Times: “It is easy enough for politicians to talk about how the current system for pay and expenses needs to be changed, but what people want to know is what we are actually going to do about it.”

The Liberal Democrat leader is determined, however, to lay down the principle that MPs should not continue to profit from huge capital gains at the taxpayers’ expense. Research in 2006 by House of Commons authorities found that 485 MPs — three quarters of the total — claimed mortgage interest payments. MPs have benefited considerably from the tripling of property prices since 1997, which have pushed up the average price of a Westminster flat from £171,000 to £543,000 last year. Despite being able to claim more than £20,000 a year for mortgage interest payments, MPs can keep any profit from second home sales when they leave Parliament.

The proposals have not yet been approved by the whole Liberal Democrat parliamentary party, and are likely to be greeted with horror by many MPs.

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in News.
Advert

One Comment

  • Andrew Duffield 9th Apr '09 - 11:56am

    Excellent – well done Nick. Not sure why it should only be “most of the profits” though. Why not 100% of the unearned uplift?

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Anthony Acton
    I agree with Graham. The party has had two opportunities to get on equal terms with Labour and the Tories this century. The first, in 2010, was wrecked by the d...
  • cim
    @Peter Davies I'm not talking about young people in general, though - according to the polls, 10% of younger voters support the Lib Dems, same as any other age...
  • PM
    @Tom, You're not the only one who's suffered from writers block when it comes to describing the recent social unrest in France and other EU countries. No-one...
  • Kevin Hawkins
    Here is my usual monthly summary of the last fifty local by-elections. It does not include the by-election on the 5th November as I like to give summarise at m...
  • Peter Davies
    @cim You are massively over-generalising about young people. The proportion that believe we were wrong to declare war against Germany in 1939 is tiny. So is the...