I have just seen that my MP has claimed £23,057 in costs associated with staying away from home, despite her constituency office being just 33.1m from the Houses of Parliament. I can only assume that these costs relate to stays in Wales in her role as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, I shall be writing a letter this week to ask more.
I also see that £91,658 is going on staffing costs, I think I will ask about that as well. I have already seen that the constituency office is only open between 9.30am and 2.30pm, so that unlikely to be stacked full of fulltime employees.
See how much your MP claimed in 2007/08 here.
5 comments:
149k here, with over 90k for staffing an office in a rural, barely active constituency
the distance is 51 miles to Westminster - it's an hour on a well-used commuter route but I don't hugely mind the second home. I think I would from there - but I could probably rent for under the full 24k
£139 here and that's for a north of Scotland MP. All things considered not too bad but the staffing costs are high-ish.
I've checked our city MP as well (LibDem) - the offices of the two are barely a mile apart, he doesn't claim for travel expenses and has a total of 127k - although he isn't a shadow front bencher
must admit i am a little confused by this peeps...
why are these costs unreasonable?
seems to me that under 100k to staff a department (assuming there are staff ofc and its not 1 big scam) is not a silly amount of cash. and then staying away from home can also be expensive when u are travelling around every week which i hope my MP is doing.
certainly, MPs cost should be wardened, and who better to do that than their constituants; and hats off for u to doing that, but dont we all really have bigger issues to worry about other than an inquisition to who is the most expensive policy changer?
right now our country is bogged down in debt higher than seen in decades and these cost cutting concepts are the type of thinking that got us there. Where is the consideration, now that we are suffering the worst of boom and bust, how to prevent future economic failure?
if we dont act to make the worst times better in a sustanive and understanding way for the future then we all dont mind enduring the worst for the good times. And if that is the case and we cannot change from this thinking then one day we simply wont be able to cope with those hard times.
how many times do we need to learn this lesson?
Daniel, that seems pretty low on average. I did my annual 'MPs screwing the taxpayer awards' today on my blog and you'll see that your MP is nowhere near the top of the list!
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