Employment minister Tony McNulty claimed the money on the house in Harrow even though he moved out in 2002 and lives in Hammersmith, west London, with his wife.
But his spokesman says he still spends two or three days a week at his parents property doing constituency work and so was entitled to the allowance. He stopped claiming the expenses in January.
The Additional Costs Allowance, worth up to £24,000 a year, is paid to MPs from outside inner London to cover the cost of staying overnight away from their main home for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties.
Most MPs use the money to pay for a base in central London near to Westminster, though some, including Mr McNulty, opt to claim for the cost of running a constituency home.
Last month Home Secretary Jacqui Smith came under fire for claiming £116,000 in expenses for a second home while effectively lodging with her sister.
Read on: http://tinyurl.com/d9baqy
*************UPDATE*************
(28th March, 2009): Scandal-hit Employment Minister Tony McNulty has been challenged over whether he had broken electoral roll laws by declaring his address as his parents' London home just two months ago - the house for which he admits he wrongly claimed Commons expenses.
Mr McNulty provoked outrage last week after The Mail on Sunday disclosed how he had claimed £60,000 in second-home allowances on his parents' house in Harrow even though he does not stay there and lives elsewhere in the capital with his £225,000-a-year education chief wife.
No comments:
Post a Comment