The two Labour MPs for Luton, Kelvin Hopkins and Margaret Moran live on the same street in Luton. You could argue over whether or not they should be able to claim a second homes allowance. But what’s really rum is that whilst Kelvin Hopkins has claimed £8,894 from the second homes allowance in the last five years, which could be for reasonable occasional costs such as the odd night in a hotel after a very late night at work, his near-neighbour Margaret Moran has claimed nearly ten times as much: £87,206. Is that really right?
Hat tip – Duncan Borrowman.
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You have to remember that the ‘second homes allowance’ is considerably more flexible than MPs let on, as I explained in a recent blog post on the subject:
ACCOMMODATION ALLOWANCE – this is designed to reimburse MPs for additional expenses “necessarily incurred in staying overnight away from their main home for the purpose of performing their parliamentary duties.” If only. Under this allowance, MPs can claim for the “increase to mortgage costs (interest only) to pay for refurbishments” (i.e. remortgage their property to pay for a nice extension and get the taxpayer to help pay for it). It also covers sofa, chairs, tables, beds, crockery, cutlery, telephones, televisions, decoration, insurance, cleaning, council tax, service charges, all utility bills and legal expenses associated with buying a home (including stamp duty). MPs can also now claim £25 for every night that they stay away from their main residence on ‘parliamentary business’, which has not been explained or justified by anyone.
Hopefully that goes some way to answering your question.
Could you bring us some examples of Lib Dem rectitude please Mark?
On this particular example we’d have to know a good deal more about the two MPs circumstances to understand whether you have a particularly good point or are just making party political hay. Are you suggesting any wrong doing?
Your co-franchiseists are also – in some cases – choosing to claim at the high end of this allowance. Can’t you catch any of them looking a bit rum?
Chris, you can start with the fact that not a single London Lib Dem MP currently claims a penny of the allowance.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23665700-details/War+on+greedy+and+sleazy+MPs/article.do
Labour must be worried about this one if Chris “attack-dog” Paul is on the case.
Nice find Mark! 🙂
Alix, Luton is not in London. As Chris Paul says it might well be that Hopkins has no rent or mortgage to pay and is therfore only climing the running costs of the house.
The fact that no Lib Dems in London claim the ACA has more to do with the fact that there are not many Lib Dem MPs than it has to do with their moral rectitude.
It is really very funny that the only time that Clegg can get any press is when he witters on about how awful the expenses system is. What happened to real issues!?
Julian, Chris Paul asked for examples of Lib Dem rectitude. I provided one. Luton, as it were, is neither here nor there.
“It is really very funny that the only time that Clegg can get any press is when he witters on about how awful the expenses system is.”
Crikey Julian, someone must have slipped me a forged newspaper, rewired my TV to broadcast fake shows, intercepted my radio and infected my web search engine to fake an awful lot of stories in the last week then. Nice to know you’ve got such a weak argument though 🙂
Julian, how exactly is MPs abusing a woefully lax expenses system not a real issue.
It is exactly this kind of thing that has undermined public confidence in politicians
Luton may be, as Alix says, neither here nor there, but is a fairly comfortable commuting distance from central London.
It takes roughly an hour to an hour and a half. I know, I am doing it every working day at the moment.
You don’t need a second home to represent Luton at Westminster.
I’ve written about this on my blog.