Neighbours query Jacqui Smith's claims in £116,000 housing expenses row

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Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is facing new claims relating to the £116,000 she has received in expenses for housing costs between 2001 and 2006.


By Simon Johnson
Last Updated: 5:21PM GMT 15 Feb 2009

The Home Secretary designated her sister's London home as her "primary" residence under the Commons' allowance scheme.

By doing so, she was allowed her to claim back thousands of pounds of housing costs towards the "second" house in the Midlands where her husband and children lived.

Calls for an inquiry were dismissed last week by a Commons' standards watchdog.

But neighbours of her sister in South London have now claimed she is there for as few as two nights each week, and hardly at all during the long parliamentary recesses.

Businessman Dominic Taplin and his wife Jessica, a charity manager, live four doors from Miss Smith's sister and have reportedly written to Commons officials about the case.

Mrs Taplin, 33, claimed: "She is virtually never here on a Sunday and you don't see much of her in the summer. I would say she spends no more than a third of the year here."

Mr Taplin, 46, added: "You can tell when she is here because the police guards arrive first. They turn up mid-morning on Monday and leave mid-morning on Thursday.

"I cannot recall when they have been here any other nights of the week."

A spokesman for Miss Smith insisted: "The London home is Miss Smith's main home where she spends the bulk of her time. The Commons Fees Office has said it is happy with the arrangement."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...enses-row.html