MPs and their council houses

The Clerk of Parliaments has just announced that he will investigate the Labour peer Baroness Uddin over detailed allegations in the Sunday Times that she has abused more than £100,000 in Parliamentary allowances by claiming that her main residence is an unoccupied flat in Maidstone, when in fact her primary residence is a house in Wapping. She denies the charge, and in a statement says: “The Wapping house is rented, while I own the property in Maidstone. The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it.” We’ve been here too many times before to waste space parsing this non-denial denial (note “I have stayed there regularly” – not the same as “I live there”).

What’s more interesting is the claim in the Standard today that the peer’s Wapping house belongs to a housing association. In terms, it is suggested, she is a council tenant. This is in Tower Hamlets, where there are 20,000 people on the waiting list for a council house. It is up to Lady Uddin’s conscience whether it is right for a woman of means, one of Tony Blair’s ‘people’s peers’ no less, to extend ask such a basic degree of subsidy from the taxpayer. Sadly the voter has no redress. But what about MPs? How many of them, I wonder, live in a council flat while earning £63,000 year plus expenses? If you know of any do pass it on.