Chris

Getting on to the government intranet from home is no mean feat. There is a list of hardware and software requirements. Back when I last had to do it you weren't even allowed to use home wifi - wired ethernet back to your approved router or nothing. Once you are working from home you incur additional costs to all your utilities bills. You may even have to adjust your home insurance, if you're being an absolute stickler for detail (as someone in an MP's position surely does). Then you can add to that, providing all of the same for the one or two administrative staff who help you keep on top of your case load, who are now also working from home and incurring all those costs.

The cost of running an office has always been a claimable expense for an MP, on top of their salary. I wouldn't like to try to quantify the cost of running multiple home offices, but there absolutely is one, and making money available for MPs to run home offices is not an unreasonable proposition.