Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I don't think he 'had his hand in the till'. I don't know how everyone else's situations work but when you share accommodation you pay rent, it's just in this case it was a partner. So against the rules but it's not like he was trying to scam people or to make a tidy profit like so many of the other MPs attempted to do.
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Exactly.
I know the rules were changed to say that you cannot use 2nd home expenses to pay rent to a partner, but I don't think that it's "wrong" as such, certainly not in this case.
If you live with your partner, in a property rented/owned by your partner, then you pay them money towards rent & bills, same as if you lived in a property owned by a random landlord. Living with a partner doesn't mean you live for free & have no rent.
He actually re-mortgaged his constituency home to help his partner fund the purchase of the London property.
The sad thing is, if he had been open about his relationship, & the property was classed as a proper 2nd home he had a stake in, he could have claimed far more money per year (e.g. the full £20,000).
I have no problem whatsoever with him paying his partner for accommodation.
[Although, given his own financial situation, I don't think he should have claimed any expenses at all in the first place... ditto for any other MP with that much money].
I think this is a very sad thing. OK, he made a mistake, but he wasn't after profit, just privacy. And now the Coalition Government has lost someone who, to me, seemed
pretty much ideal for the role he was in.