MPs' expenses: Alan and Ann Keen face formal sleaze investigation
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Benedict Smith Our Foreign Staff Gwyn Wright Uche Amako Chris Bascombe Jon Swaine
Alan and Ann Keen, the Labour MPs, are to have their expenses investigated by the parliamentary sleaze watchdog.
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The Telegraph
John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, will look into the married couple's allowance claims after it emerged that their "main home" - which has now been occupied by squatters - was not lived in for up to a year.

A spokeswoman for Mr Lyon said: "The commissioner has received a complaint, and agreed to investigate it."

The Keens claimed £140,000 over four years for their "second home" - a Thameside apartment ten miles away in Westminster - while listing the run-down, semi-detached house in Brentford, west London, as their "main home".

Under Commons rules, an MP's main home must be the one in which they spend the most nights. However, the Keens were sent a warning from Hounslow Council that the property would be seized as an "abandoned dwelling" - and council tenants would be moved in - if it remained unoccupied for much longer.

Ten squatters have since moved in to the property, after gaining entry through a ground-floor window. They put up banners outside reading: "Reclaiming your taxes".

The couple, who have been described as "Mr and Mrs Expenses", are taking legal action to evict the squatters from the property, which is in Mrs Keen's Brentford & Isleworth constituency.

They insist that they were only staying full-time at the taxpayer-funded "second home" because renovations were taking place at the Brentford house. However, builders left the property eight months ago. Neighbours also said they rarely saw the Keens even before the building work began.

The couple claimed almost £40,000-a-year from their second home allowances, which helped them pay the interest on the mortgage of the £750,000 Thames-side flat.

As well as claiming mortgage interest of £2,600 a month, they also claimed for other domestic bills and maintenance costs, including £50 to have their home cinema system reconfigured.