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Straw’s council tax dodge ... and Two Loos Prescott
Nicholas Cecil8 May 2009
Jack Straw charged the taxpayer for double the amount of council tax that he was actually paying for four years.
The Justice Secretary claimed between £807 and £943 a year from Commons expenses to cover the levy on his Blackburn constituency home from 2004.
However, shortly after it emerged that the receipts of MPs' claims were to be made public, Mr Straw contacted the fees office to admit he had made a mistake over his council tax. In correspondence marked “in confidence”, he said: “I have been checking my claims since 04, and I have realised that my claims for council tax have been incorrect.”
The Cabinet minister wrote that because of a “50 per cent zero occupancy discount”, he had paid out far less than claimed and included a cheque for £1,395.88 to cover the difference.
“I am sorry,” he added. “I am afraid that the reality of life over the last few years is that I've often had to complete the claims in marginal time and without recourse to all the records.”
But a month after sending this note on 20 July last year, Mr Straw realised that he had failed to repay the correct sum. Enclosing another cheque of £136.27 in a letter, he wrote: “Sorry about that too — accountancy does not appear to be my strongest suit.” Included in this correspondence was Mr Straw's March council tax bill, on which was written: “Say it's not zero occupancy — I live there.”
The former Foreign Secretary also repaid more than £200 to the taxpayer after overcharging on his mortgage.
A spokesman for the Justice Secretary said: “An error arose because the amount of interest declined towards the end of the mortgage. Mr Straw spotted errors in the claims for council tax and alerted the authorities. All claims made have been made in accordance with the rules of the Commons.”
The Justice Secretary also claimed more than £15,000 to renovate and furnish his Blackburn home which he claimed was more dilapidated than his daughter's student accommodation.
