Former Housing Minister Esther McVey has been claiming tens of thousands of pounds in Parliamentary expenses for renting a London flat, despite her husband owning a property a mile away, it has been claimed.

The current Minister for Common Sense has appeared on official records for the flat in Westminster for the last two years, reports The Telegraph, receiving £39,000 during this period.

However, she and husband, fellow Tory MP Philip Davies, have claimed £1,625 a month in rental expenses on the property since 2017, which means they could have received as much as £250,000 from the taxpayer.

Parliamentary rules do not forbid MPs from claiming rent for a property even if they or their spouse already own one nearby; they can make a rental claim for only one property – either in London or their constituency.

Questions

But questions have been raised about whether McVey’s claims represent value for money because Davies owns a flat in Waterloo, which is about a 25-minute walk from the other property and is rented out.

According to the register of interests, Davies has declared an income in excess of £10,000 for a property in London - understood to relate to the Waterloo flat, which he has owned since 2005.

When quizzed by political campaign group Led by Donkeys, he criticised the rules, saying that the arrangement had been “forced” on him by the body which was set up in the wake of the expenses scandal in 2009, meaning he cannot claim any mortgage interest on the Waterloo property, even if the couple lived there.

He told the group: “If I owned the flat outright and I could stay there without incurring any cost then I would agree that I should do that, but that doesn’t remotely apply in my case.”