Mr and Mrs expenses: MP couple get £175,000 for a flat ... and their house is just 30 minutes away
Brentford Hounslow Insurance Mortgages
Evening Standard
A husband and wife who are both MPs have used £175,000 of taxpayers’ money to help buy a flat near Parliament – while they already have a constituency home nine miles away.
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Evening Standard
Health minister Ann Keen, 59, and her husband Alan, 70 - who have been nicknamed Mr and Mrs Expenses - bought an apartment on the South Bank of the Thames using their generous second homes perk.

They also took out life insurance policies worth £430,000 and claimed back the £867.57 a month premiums on their expenses.

Health Minister Ann Keen and her husband Alan have claimed for two mortgages on expenses and life insurance premiums

The couple bought the flat, in a block with its own swimming pool and gym, under rules that allow MPs to spend £23,083 a year to run and furnish a home near the Commons.

They qualified for the handout because they live outside inner London. Yet the Keens’ home is actually in Brentford, West London - about 30 minutes away by car.

The details were revealed in documents after a three-year freedom of information battle in which Commons

Speaker Michael Martin lost his bid to keep a breakdown of MPs’ expenses secret.

Ten days ago the High Court ruled he must publish details of claims made under the additional costs allowance by 14 current or former MPs.

Speaker Michael Martin spent £200,000 on a legal battle to keep MPs expenses secret

Mrs Keen, who represents Brentford and Isleworth, and Mr Keen, who is Labour MP for neighbouring Feltham and Heston, already effectively receive double the expenses of other MPs because they share a property.

But the manner in which they bought another home near the Royal Festival Hall will raise eyebrows yet again about the Commons expenses regime.

The couple bought the flat in May 2002 after spending six months in a London hotel.

In a letter to the Commons’ Fees Office informing officials of their changed circumstances, the Keens wrote: ‘Despite some advantages of hotel accommodation, overall we found it unsatisfactory and have borrowed…to purchase a flat within walking distance of Westminster.’

In an unusual arrangement, they used two mortgages. One loan was for £350,000 from HSBC. The other £170,000 was raised by re-mortgaging their property in Brentford, also through HSBC.

The couple argued that because the second home loan was used to raise equity for the central London flat it should be permissible on expenses.

This was apparently nodded through by officials. The property would almost certainly now be worth at £800,000, according to experts.

As well as the interest payments on their mortgage, the couple claimed £867.57 a month for ‘compulsory’ life insurance premiums attached to the home loans - a practice which has since been banned.

According to the documents, they never submitted a single receipt. Instead, they

sent two sheets of A4 to the expenses department every month, claiming £1,643.50 each month throughout 2002-03 and £1,699 each throughout 2003-04 - almost the maximum payable.

Home help: Ann and Alan Keen used their allowances to help buy a flat in Waterloo

In the five years since they bought the apartment, Mrs Keen has claimed £87,325 under the second homes allowance and Mr Keen has received £87,803 - a total of £175,128.

In the last year for which figures are available, the pair claimed a total of £38,515 under the ACA, which covers mortgage interest, service charges, utility and food.

If they had each separately taken the £38 taxi ride from Westminster to Brentford on every Commons ‘sitting day’ that year, the bill would have only come to £11,000 - £27,000 less.

Alan and Anne Kean's house in Brentford

There is no suggestion the couple broke the rules. However, their case will intensify pressure for reforms of the way MPs pay themselves expenses.

Critics claim they lived so near to the Commons they should only be able to claim the London supplement of £2,700.

The housing allowances system is now under review.

A Department of Health spokesman stressed the Keens’ claims were within the rules.

But Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign group, said they were ‘unacceptable’.

‘The allowance should help MPs represent their constituencies, not pay the costs of life insurance or enable them to build up a lucrative property portfolio.’