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Beckett cashes in on housing allowance loophole

from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Times

July 18, 2004

Beckett cashes in on housing allowance loophole

Gareth Walsh

THE environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, is claiming a Commons housing allowance while renting out her London home and living in a grace-and-favour apartment.

Beckett, who left her Westminster flat for the free government accommodation, is pocketing rent from her former home while claiming expenses for a second house that she owns in her constituency. She is taking advantage of a loophole in the rules that allows ministers who use official accommodation to rent out their London properties while claiming an allowance for homes in their constituencies.

Beckett declined to say this weekend how much she claimed from the Commons, but the maximum figure permitted is nearly £21,000 a year.

The payment, called the additional costs allowance (ACA), is intended to cover the expenses of MPs who have homes and constituencies outside London but must live in the capital while the Commons is sitting. It can be used to pay interest on a mortgage — but not to pay back the capital from it — as well as to pay utility bills and essential maintenance costs, to buy furniture and to pay for television licences.

Beckett bought the leasehold on her one-bedroom Westminster flat in November 1987. The property, which it is believed she has let to a Home Office civil servant, is in a 10-storey pebbledash block behind the Labour party’s former Millbank headquarters. It is thought to be worth at least £220,000 and has access to an underground car park.

It is described by local estate agents as “situated within the division bell”, meaning it is in easy reach for voting in the Commons. Beckett and her husband Leo also own a detached cottage in her Derby constituency. For this she claims running costs from the taxpayer.

With no mortgage to pay on her Derby home and almost no living costs in London, Beckett is free to pocket the estimated £12,000-a-year rent from her Westminster flat.

The Green Book, the official pay and allowances guide for MPs, warns that they can claim only for “those additional costs wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred” when working away from their main home. Ministers’ main homes are always considered to be in London. MPs can lose thousands of pounds in allowances if they claim for a property but then let any part of it to tenants.

This does not catch Beckett because the house she is renting out is not the same one for which she is claiming expenses. Although by living in grace-and-favour homes ministers lose an annual £1,618 London salary supplement, they can still claim up to the maximum £20,902-a-year in ACA.

Beckett’s government flat is in Admiralty House, Whitehall, and would be worth an estimated £161,000 a year on the rental market. Other ministers in the building include Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary and John Prescott, the deputy prime minister. Hoon, MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, also owns a house in Kennington, south London, for which he receives rental income.

Other senior politicians with constituencies outside London and government homes in the capital include Tony Blair (who sold his London home), David Blunkett, the home secretary, and Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker. Blunkett, a Sheffield MP, owns a house in Wimbledon, southwest London, but rents his property out while living in his official residence in Pimlico, central London.

A spokesman for Beckett said: “Mrs Beckett claims her entitlement under the ACA scheme and has complied strictly with Green Book guidance.”

MPs’ expenses claims for the past three years are due to be published in October under new freedom of information rules.

A spokesman for Martin said this weekend: “He is under no obligation to make public whether he does or he does not (claim ACA).”

Martin states in the current register of members’ interests that a Westminster flat he owns with his wife Mary is “not let for rent”. He is currently the subject of controversy over parliamentary payments to Mary for constituency work. Some Commons officials are reported to have voiced concerns she does too little work for her money.

A spokesman for Jack Straw said that, although the foreign secretary has an official London residence in Carlton Gardens, off Pall Mall, he does not live there but at his family home in Kennington.

(posted 7194 days ago)

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