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London MPs will lose second homes cash in expenses payback
Pippa Crerar5 Feb 2010
Two former ministers have paid back the largest sums of all London MPs.
Barry Gardiner, a former environment minister, has voluntarily repaid £15,404 while Joan Ryan, a former Home Office minister, owes £5,121.
Mr Gardiner, MP for Brent North, bought a flat in Pimlico for £246,500 in 2003 and spent more than £11,000 renovating it — and claiming mortgage interest — before selling it for £445,000 in 2007. The Labour MP, whose constituency is eight miles from Westminster, has already repaid £15,404.
Ms Ryan, MP for Enfield North which is 14 miles from Westminster, spent thousands on repairs and decorations at her constituency home before switching her designated second home to a flat in south London. She has been asked to repay £5,121 mortgage interest and has paid back £322.
They are two of the 54 outer London MPs who will this year lose their £24,000-a-year second-home payments for members with seats within 20 miles of the House of Parliament.
More than 20 outer London MPs, including Labour's Margaret Hodge and Lib-Dem Sarah Teather, did not claim the additional costs allowance.
Another repaying mortgage interest was Labour MP Gareth Thomas who owes £1,158.
Former minister Tony McNulty is not covered by the report as he is being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after claiming second-home expenses for a house where his parents lived.
Harry Cohen, MP for Leyton and Wanstead, is expected to lose his £65,000 “golden goodbye” when he steps down from Parliament for claiming £60,000 for a second home while letting out his main property.
He also repaid £933 for items including a £150 vase; £325 bedside table and a fourth bed which Sir Thomas suggested was excessive.
Labour husband and wife MPs Ann and Alan Keen were told to pay back £345 cleaning costs each for claiming £2,790 cleaning for the same property. Respect MP George Galloway, repaid £3,187 for mobile phone charges.
Reader views (1)
The recent pledge by Kennedy that MP’s must pay back profits from second homes only applies to gains since November 2009, [http://gains from massive Increases up to 2008 will be ignored.|http://gains from massive Increases up to 2008 will be ignored.]
Once again they fail to live up to expectations.
Profits from second homes need to be backdated to 1997.
There was never any political will to enable the average person earning average wage to be able to afford an average house in a rising unregulated market, under a secret expenses system, where MP’s were all flipping houses, making hundreds of thousands in personal profits.
Not one MP represented the average wage earner.
It is typical that the plan is NOT to reclaim the profits made before 2008 – as this is when 95% of the profit would have been made. Again it appears a symbolic gesture to appease angry voters. But we will NOT be so easily conned.
It is not just that they used our money to profit, and paid no tax on the gains, it is also that it created a dangerous conflict of interest that meant that voting for policies which fed the house price bubble also generated personal profits for them.
MP’s should not be able to make any kind of PERSONAL profit whatsoever, with Taxpayers money.
Millions of us average hardworking people, have been forced to waste tens upon tens of thousands in rent for over 10 years, paying for someone elses debt.
MPS MUST PAY BACK ALL PERSONAL PROFITS, BACKDATED TO THE BEGINNING OF THEIR TENURE.
- Dane, London, 26/02/2010 13:01
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