All aboad the New Labour hog express....A GOVERNMENT minister is claiming up to £22,000 a year in expenses by saying that her mother’s modest bungalow in Yorkshire is her main home.
Baroness Thornton, a Labour minister in the whips’ office, has lived and worked in London for more than 30 years and has a £1m family house near Hampstead Heath.
However, Thornton has claimed about £130,000 since 2002 by designating her mother’s current bungalow and, before 2005, her mother’s previous home as her main residence.
The addresses she has given as the main residences are her mother’s homes in Shipley, north of Bradford. The current main residence is a three-bedroom bungalow that her mother bought in 2005 for £137,000.
When challenged last week, Thornton said her relatives lived in Yorkshire and she had Shaming of our political class, Focus, pages 12-13 decided to live there because her mother was ill. “The reason I have a home in Bradford is because I go home every weekend to look after her.”
Thornton says she pays the mortgage, although Land Registry records make clear that her mother still owns the house. “I share this house with her,” she said.
When asked repeatedly about how she defined her mother’s bungalow as a main residence instead of her family home, she avoided the question and put the phone down.
Technorati Tags: troughligate, expenses
.
0 people have spoken:
Post a Comment