MP's Expenses

Public anger at some of the abuses of MP's expenses is entirely justified.

MP's, once elected, are expected by their constituents to live and work both in their constituency and to live and work in London when Parliament is in session. An allowance is provided to enable that to happen.

How on earth can anyone believe that claiming to have your moat cleaned, your paddocks rolled, a £5,000 portico built or a 'duck island' installed is anything remotely connected with allowing you to 'perform parliamentary duties'? I find it equally difficult to understand how claiming for any 'home' other than one in your constituency or one in London can be justified either. That 1 or 2 MP's appear to have even claimed for mortgage interest AFTER they had paid their mortgage off, would take 'exploiting the rules' into the clear realms of criminal fraud.

For my part I have never claimed a penny for living in Chesterfield. Ever since my election in 2001 I have continued to live, with my family, in exactly the same house that we moved into in 1986 (having previously lived in Tapton, since 1979). All Chesterfield bills are entirely paid by me.

Ever since 2001 I have rented a small, one bedroom flat in London. All of my claims are connected with that and the costs of a single person living in London, usually from Monday afternoon through to Thursday evening. Given the astronomical property prices in London something like 85% of all my claims are for rent (from a large commercial company).

By early June every claim and receipt of every MP for 2004 -2008 is to be put up on the House of Commons website. These are currently having all confidential details such as addresses, bank and credit card details, blacked out. I have before urged local journalists to spend a typical working day with me in Parliament but they have never taken me up on the offer. If any journalist from the Advertiser/Derbyshire Times/Peak FM would now like to do so then, as well as work shadowing me from 8.30am through to 10.30 pm (or 7.30pm on a Wednesday), they can also sit in my London flat for 4 or 5 hours, report on the very very ordinary flat, and go through all my own unedited copies of my claims and receipts up to 2009 (with addresses etc left in). Any takers in the interests of fair and fully informed reporting?

Paul Holmes is the MP for Chesterfield.