Philip Hollobone MP still employs no staff and five Tory MPs claimed no housing allowance whatsoever last year

Today the House of Commons has published the table of MPs' allowances for 2007-08.

The expenditure on housing, staffing, office and communications allowances can be viewed here and travel expenditure can be viewed here.

They are not in excel format so are not easy to sort, but several little nuggets intially jump out at me: Thanks to Norm Brainer for pointing out this link which does have them in Excel format!

Kettering Tory MP Philip Hollobone (pictured above) remains the one MP not to employ any staff as a matter of course. He claimed a mere £400 in staffing costs, whereas most if his colleagues spent the lion's sagre of the £90,505 available. I have stated my views about this before here.

Only nine of the 570 MPs with constituencies outside of London claim not a penny to cover a second home, of which five are Conservatives:

• Adam Afriyie (Windsor)
• Richard Benyon (Newbury)
• Philip Dunne (Ludlow)
• Anne Milton (Guildford)
• Rob Wilson (Reaing East)

The four non-Conservaitves are Celia Barlow (Lab, Hove), David Howarth (Lib Dem, Cambrudge), Geoffrey Robinson (Lab, Coventry North West) and Martin Salter (Lab, Reading West).

Eight MPs claimed absolutely nothing in travel expenses, of which two were Conservatives:

• Adam Afriyie (Windsor)
• Greg Hands (Hammersmith and Fulham)

The six non-Conservatives were George Galloway (Respect, Bethnal Green and Bow), Ann Keen (Lab, Brentford and Isleworth), Susan Kramer (Lib Dem, Richmond Park), Tony McNulty (Lab, Harrow East), Nick Raynsford (Lab, Greenwich adn Woolwich) and Emily Thornberry (Lab Islington South and Finsbury).

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[John]

How were the Sinn Féin MPs able to claim the allowance for staying away from home? Seems a tad odd to be honest. I can understand how they claim the office and staffing costs, but where are they travelling to?

[Conand]

I really admire our Greater London/Near London MPs who don't claim any 2nd Home allowance or 'London
Supplement'. They should tap some of our people on the shoulder. Wake up!!

Philip Hollobone is a hero.

[Andrew Woodman]

I see the marginal MP's are making full use of the communcations allowance. Emily Thornberry sticks out at £17k. Majority of about 500.

[roman]

I am pleased Mr Hollobone claims very little in the way of expenses but I believe that like Adam Afriye, he is a wealthy man who uses his own resources to fund his staff - not all MPs are in that category.

My Outer London MP (next door to Harry Cohen!), lives in his/our constituency and does not own a 2nd home. His Labour predecessor did.

[Paul J]

Roman- Philip Hollobone doesn't have any staff. He does the work himself.

[Local]

Mark Field represents Westminster itself. What is he claiming £928 in rail for?

Surely we aren't paying for his travelcard as well!?

[Visiting Lib Dem]

How much did PICKLES claim???

[The Huntsman]

It certainly does not slow Phillip Hollobone down at all in doing his work to have no staff. As he is our constituency MP my son wrote by email from his university to raise the issue of student fees.

He was surprised to get a detailed reply almost by return but, with the callow cynicism of youth, opined that it must have been the work of 'some intern or other'. He was even more surprised to learn that it was from the MP's own hand as he has no staff and so does all his own paperwork (electronic and otherwise).

He was also impressed with both the answer and Hollobone's thriftiness and is thus a confirmed vote for him at the GE.

My son also asked:" Why can't all MPs be like him?"

Why, indeed?

[Mr Disgusted]

MP's like Hollobone are, for many reasons, better than the party they serve.
BOO is one example why, value for money is another etc etc.

[Saint Diamond]

Philip is not a wealthy man, and therefore does not fund his own staff - he does the work himself.
This way he knows what is going on in his constituency and he stays in touch with the electorate. He is also a serving local councillor and very active with the constituency association.

He is also not doing this as a recent fad - he has always been the lowest cost even before this issue was on the political radar. He practises what he preaches - a small state Conservative.

Before they stopped issuing the ranking of most questions, voting in debates etc - Theyworkforyou.com had Philip in the top 5 on every single count - all done by himself without employing wife, aunt, son, the cat etc etc.

Philip will not be considered for even the most junior role in Cameron's team because he is a member of the Better Off Out campaign. If the mainstream of the party has to tolerate the federalistic dreams of Ken Clarke, why can't BOO MP's be allowed a seat at the table?

[Norm Brainer]

Here's an XLS Version of the expenses:

http://ge2009.co.uk/HoCExpenses0708.xls

Was being annoying so had to copy out each page seperately so will post the travel ones in a bit.

[Norm Brainer]

Above link now contains the travel expenses on the 2nd sheet

[Norm Brainer]

Apologies for 3 posts in a row... I've now improved the xls to be all numbers and have a totals sheet, although it's gone up to 4mb now

[David]

"Philip Hollobone is a hero."

I'd like to hear from his constituents, first. An MP doing nothing isn't a hero, even if he claims nothing.

I'm not prejudging, and I'd hope Mr Hollobone is indeed a credit to the party. Just saying not too get too hung up on the issue of expenses.

[Bishop Hill]

I wrote to Philip Hollobone a couple of times last year, enquiring how he managed to do it. While he wasn't letting on, I did get a quick and curteous response to both my emails. This is in stark contrast to two emails I sent to my own MP, Gordon Banks (Lab, Ochil, £87k staffing costs) neither of which received so much as an acknowledgement.

[MG]

This is useful but needs further analysis of rankings on each budget line etc. Also without accounting notes its a bit hard to understand how some are claiming over the 10K for communications. Also of interest are those that claimed exactly 10K to the penny! We could also do with a breakdown of costs eg associated postage costs and what was in the communications allowance. If an MP cliamed the full 10K but didn't produce a report (newsletter as some do) what was the £10k spent on? Its not too much to ask, many other organisations have to provide such detail often at the demand of Govt bureaucrats. Also can FOIs be used to ask for details of the number of letters written using assocviated postage and communications allowances? Some of the figures don't seem to ring true with what is actually known to be going on in their constituencies.

[johnfromcamberley]

I would like to join the queue to congratulate Philip Hollobone. Philip is a really excellent MP. He gets round the constituency to a phenomenal degree, as well as maintaining such a good level of attendance and activity in the house. I can also confirm his record over correspondence and other contact with his constituents - The Huntsman's example is entirely typical. I don't think there is any great secret to how he does it - Philip is simply very able, efficient and has a good memory.

I will declare an interest, but only in the sense that he is my mother's MP. They meet pretty frequently at various events around Kettering, and Philip is very kind to her and her friends. That sort of thing is always going to score strong marks with me!

Philip is probably too nice a guy to get riled by remarks like those of Roman, but I will say: shame on you, for not letting your ignorance get in the way of making a posting and for trying to knock down a good chap just to make a sly point.

[matthew]

I am disgusted that my MP, Humfrey Malins claimed £30,000 in the last 2 years for staying in London, despite being MP in Woking, which has the best links to Westminster of any town outside of London, a 23 minute train journey to Waterloo followed by either a short walk or 1 stop on the Tube.

Meanwhile, as his constituent, I regard living in Woking as an exceptionally convenient place to commute to London, something that I do every day (and the costs come out of my own pocket). My employer would not dream of paying me an additional £15k/year to save a 30 minute journey home. I'd be lucky to get a single night in the Travelodge, let alone the utterly obscene £15k Mr. Malins grabs each year.

And before anyone claims Anne Milton, one stop down the mainline in Guildford, another town crowded with commuters who pay a substantial premium for good links to London (30 minutes by train), is a saint for claiming nothing, she actually grabbed £11.5k the previous year. Money for nothing

[Victor, NW Kent]

Exactly how do Gordon Brown have living costs involved in staying away from home? He has 2 grace and favour residences. Since he has a staff of dozens and fully equipped offices it would be interesting to see why he claims such a large staffing allowance and office running costs.
Then we can ask the same questions about Alistair Darling.

We see that Gerry Adams, who does nothing at all at Westminster manages to claim £133,000 - almost the same as Martin McGuinness.

John Prescott who only appears once a quarter claims about the same and George Galloway, who only appears in the House on February 29th still manages to use up £113,000 without any second home claim.

[The BIshop Swine]

Thanks for your hard work Norm.

http://ge2009.co.uk/HoCExpenses0708.xls

[Albert Hall]

philip Hollobone replies without fail to all my emails and the occasional letter. And he's not wealthy.

[Freddy]

Glad to see a Northamptonshire MP is top of the pops! Conservatives retook Kettering from Labour in 2005.

There are only two Labour seats in Northamptonshire now - Corby, and Northampton North.

[Simon Richards]

Saint Diamond made some excellent points about the admirable Philip Hollobone MP being a leading signatory to The Freedom Association's BETTER OFF OUT campaign. Like his fellow BETTER OFF OUT signatory, the brilliant Daniel Hannan MEP (also, like Philip, a Council Member of The Freedom Association), he is barred from any form of promotion for the crime of agreeing with the 55% majority of the British population which wishes Britain to free itself from the corrupt, anti-democratic and costly European Union. Thus these two outstandingly able and diligent men are left to rot on the backbenches while Eurofanatics such as Ken Clarke luxuriate on the front bench. Until the Conservative Party puts an end to this insulting charade, Stuart Wheeler won't be the only Conservative unable to bring himself to vote Tory in the European "Parliament" elections.

[SL]

Freddy,

You say there are only two Labour MPs in Northamptonshire now, of course you're quite right - but not for too much longer!

There is (or won't be) Hope.

[Freddy]

@SL

Hopefully, Hope, won't be elected for Corby next time! Good joke!

[Tommy]

Geoffrey Robinson doesn't need to claim for a second home, he got all the money that he will ever need when he was busy running jaguar into the ground.

[sasha]

Whilst the Conservatives rightfully have 5 of the 10 cheapest MPs (excluding the Speaker and Tony Blair), we do also have an MP who managed to claim more than any MP from Northern Ireland. He is also the most expensive English MP. Personally I hope this is just a one off.

[Richard]

Some Tory MPs have been claiming vast sums of our money, one even claiming just under £150,000! If Philip Hollobone can do a good job for £40,433 I see no reason why other Tory MPs cannot do the same. I know how little researchers are paid, so even if Philip Hollobone employed a member of staff his costs would still be way under £100,000.

We should all remember that MPs get paid over £60,000 on top of these expenses and many will be having the mortgage on a second home (close to Westminster) paid for by us the hard pressed tax payer. When they eventually step off the gravy train, sorry, leave Westminster, they will be able to sell their London home and make even more money. Oh, I forgot to mention the gold plated pension as well!

[Richard]

Correction to my above post, it was actually over £160,000 and not just under £150,000!

[Stephen]

The key factor in Isaby's piece would appear to be proximity to London rather than political affiliation. MP's for all three parties in a ring around London - Newbury, Cambridge, Hove, Coventry and (the particularly virtuous) Ludlow don't claim for a second home. Some London MP's from all three parties don't claims travel expenses. The point is that politicians are human beings like us. Some will milk the system for all it is worth, others will be more ethical in their approach to expenses. Just like us.

[Another Tory]

There seems to be a couple of errors in the excel spreadsheet. For example the Rt Hon Joan Ryan claimed a total of £151,233. The combined sheet shows £121,003.
£151,233 looks much more reasonable for a woman who a few years ago had postage costs of around £29,000.

[Jack Stone]

Conservative MP`s are just as bad as Labour MP`s when it comes to fleecing the taxpayer.Labour may have there Jacqui Smith but the Tories have Derek Conway.No party comes out of this smelling of roses!!

[Super Blue]

Will someone inform Jock Stale:
i) that plurals do not require apostrophes.
ii) that Derek Conway was de-whipped and is sitting as an Independent.

On second thoughts, don't bother as he doesn't care about the facts!