Jim Devine MP & Eastern Electrical Ltd.

According to the Sunday Herald Jimmy claimed £2000 for electrical work carried out by ‘phantom firm’.

....One such enterprise appears to be Eastern Electrical Ltd, a firm whose name is printed on an invoice submitted as part of Scottish Labour MP Jim Devine's second home claims.

The £2157 repairs bill was dated June 2007 and paid by the Westminster Fees Office a month later, according to Devine's end-of-year allowances statement.

However, a Sunday Herald investigation can reveal that there are serious doubts over whether Eastern Electrical Ltd has ever existed.

Fresh from the scandal of MPs billing the taxpayer for so-called "ghost mortgages" - where the public was meeting the cost of politicians' home loans that had already been paid off - this fresh invoice now raises the prospect of the country's elected representatives being reimbursed by the taxpayer for services provided by phantom firms.

Devine, the MP for Livingston, entered the Commons in 2005 in a by-election following the death of former foreign secretary Robin Cook. In the four years since he became an MP, the former trade union official has claimed around £60,000 from the Additional Costs Allowance, which allows MPs to buy and refurbish a second home.

Part of his £22,898 claim in 2007-08, according to documents obtained by this newspaper, included £2157 for "rewiring works".

The invoice supporting the claim is in the name of London-based Eastern Electrical Ltd. However, there is no record of it being registered at Companies House, the official government database of UK firms.

The only company of the same name registered was based in Norwich, but it went bust in 1999, six years before Devine became an MP.

A spokesman for Companies House said: "It cannot claim to be a British company with limited liability without being registered at Companies House."

The address and postcode on the firm's invoice deepen the mystery. Although the address given is "76 Wilstone House, Southark Bridge Road", there is no Southark Bridge Road in the United Kingdom.

However, there is a Southwark Bridge Road two streets away from the property on Kennington Road that Devine bought in 2006. Even so, no documents exist to prove that a Wilstone House has ever been based in this central London street....

A previous post I did on champagne swilling Jimmy boy before.

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