Labour MPs Alan and Ann Keen ordered to repay £1,500 in expenses
Andrew Sparrow www.theguardian.com
Watchdog says couple claimed money from the second home allowance to which they were not entitled because their central London property had in effect become their main home
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the Guardian
The Labour MPs Alan and Ann Keen were today ordered to repay £1,500 after an investigation found that they had broken Commons rules in relation to second home expenses.

The Commons standards and privileges committee said that the couple had claimed money from the second home allowance to which they were not entitled because their main home was empty and uninhabitable.

But the committee said that they should not have to repay all the money they were deemed to have claimed wrongly because the Commons authorities told them twice their arrangements were acceptable.

In a report, the committee also said the pair had been the victims of "malign and sometimes false" reporting in the media.

Alan Keen, MP for Feltham and Heston, and his wife Ann, a health minister and MP for Brentford and Isleworth, own a house in Brentford. In 2002 they bought a flat near parliament, which they used when the Commons was sitting and which they funded using the second home allowance.

In May 2008 the Keens began to renovate their Brentford home. They began to spend most of their time living in their central London flat and in December 2008 they had their Brentford home boarded up. They did not stay there overnight again until October 2009 and in the summer of 2009, after their case was publicised in the press, the house was occupied by squatters.

John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, launched an inquiry into a complaint that they continued to claim the second home allowance when their central London property had in effect become their main home.

Lyon said that, even though the Commons authorities approved the claims, the Keens were ultimately responsible for what they did and that they had committed "a serious misjudgment".

But the committee, which considered Lyon's report, said that it was taking "a more lenient view". It said the fact that the Keens' claims were approved by the Commons department of resources was "a very significant mitigating factor".

The committee said that the Keens should have stopped claiming the second home allowance between June and October 2009 and that they had therefore received £5,678 to which they were not entitled. But it also said they should only have to repay £1,500 because of the "exceptional factors" in the case.

Responding to the report, the Keens said: "We accept in full the verdict of the committee, and are grateful that the members acknowledge the strong mitigating circumstances in our case."