Keith Vaz, the senior Labour backbencher, claimed more than £75,500 in expenses for a flat in Westminster despite his family home being a £1.15 million house just 12 miles from parliament.
His living arrangements will leave him open to the same questions asked of Tony McNulty, the Home Office Minister, who claimed for a house about the same distance away lived in by his parents.
Mr Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, also switched his designated second home from the £545,000 flat to a house in his Leicester East constituency and back again in the space of a year. Mr Vaz's main home is a house in Stanmore, north-west London, that he bought with his wife Maria for £1.15 million in November 2005. They live there with their two children. Before then they lived in another house in Stanmore.
Their current house is less than a mile from Stanmore underground station, which takes passengers directly to Westminster on the Jubilee Line. According to Transport for London, the 14-stop journey should take about 37 minutes. Westminster is about 12 miles from the house. A car journey straight down the A5 should take about 40 minutes.
Documents filed with Commons officials showed that between 2004 and April 2007, Mr Vaz claimed more than £69,000 for expenses at the flat in Westminster, which he bought in 2003. He moved in shortly after selling another for £312,000.
His claims included monthly mortgage interest payments of between £1,500 and £1,750, £200 in monthly grocery bills and £50 per month for a cleaner.
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Labour MP (Leicester/Leistershire) and former Cabinet Minister Keith Vaz –Investigated for fraud and corruption before quietly leaving his Europe Minister post with “health problems”. According to his former Secretary Vaz does absolutely nothing in his constituency other than help local Pakistanis with their immigration cases in the city where Whites are a minority. http://tinyurl.com/2fymbs
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In a separate incident he has become embroiled in an investigation by anti-terrorism police after speaking at a rally in which suicide bombers were praised. News of the inquiry has put pressure on Keith Vaz, the former Labour minister who heads the all-party home affairs select committee, to defend his decision to speak at last month's rally at London's ExCeL exhibition centre in support of the Sri Lankan breakaway movement, the Tamil Tigers. Mr Vaz, the MP for Leicester East, whose Commons committee is in charge of scrutinising all anti-terrorism legislation, has been contacted by police investigating the event. The Sri Lankan high commissioner, Kshenuka Senewiratne, has written to Gordon Brown to express her "serious concerns" at Mr Vaz's presence at the rally. http://tinyurl.com/47sp5r
In a separate incident he has become embroiled in an investigation by anti-terrorism police after speaking at a rally in which suicide bombers were praised. News of the inquiry has put pressure on Keith Vaz, the former Labour minister who heads the all-party home affairs select committee, to defend his decision to speak at last month's rally at London's ExCeL exhibition centre in support of the Sri Lankan breakaway movement, the Tamil Tigers. Mr Vaz, the MP for Leicester East, whose Commons committee is in charge of scrutinising all anti-terrorism legislation, has been contacted by police investigating the event. The Sri Lankan high commissioner, Kshenuka Senewiratne, has written to Gordon Brown to express her "serious concerns" at Mr Vaz's presence at the rally. http://tinyurl.com/47sp5r
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