The Tory leader is accused of “insulting” struggling voters with one of the highest second home claims of any MP for her huge country pile – even though it borders London
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is charging the taxpayer more than £400 a month in council tax for a second home in the highest council tax band.
It comes as millions of ordinary working Brits brace themselves for soaring council tax bills from next week. The Sunday Mirror can reveal that Mrs Badenoch’s rented constituency home – paid for on expenses – is a huge grade II listed farmhouse with six bedrooms. Her banker husband subsidises the rent – as it is over the limit for the amount she can claim – but Mrs Badenoch has landed the taxpayer with the full council tax bill.
It is in “Band H” for council tax – the highest of eight bands containing just 0.6% of England’s most expensive properties – and Mrs Badenoch claimed nearly £4,000 in council tax last year. She made the 23rd highest accommodation claim out of 664 MPs last year and yet her Essex constituency borders the “London area” where MPs are not allowed to claim any second home expenses at all. It is within the rules but raises awkward questions for the outspoken right-winger, who says she wants a “smaller state” and champions lower Government spending. Her office declined to comment on our investigation.
Kwajo Tweneboa, a campaigner on social issues like housing, said: “While countless people across the country scrape by on a fraction of Kemi’s salary – forced to stretch every pound just to keep up with soaring council tax bills – she comfortably claims £4,000 a year in expenses to cover her own. For those struggling to choose between heating their homes and putting food on the table, this isn’t just unfair, it’s an insult.
“At a time when working families are being squeezed from every angle, the idea that the Leader of the Opposition can offload a basic cost of living onto the taxpayer is nothing short of a slap in the face. It may be within the rules but it’s not as if she can’t afford it.”
Issy Waite, Labour’s candidate for Mrs Badeboch’s North West Essex seat at the last election, said: “I was clear in my campaign that if I was elected I would not take a flat in London or a second home. I believe that if you are elected for an area you should at least live in that area. With Kemi Badenoch, the thing I heard time and time again on the doorstep is that she only turns up when it is election time, for a photo op, and then she leaves.
“I think it is unfair for the bill for her very large home to be put on taxpayers when we all know there is a cost of living crisis and that it is her Government that has created this mess. I think it is incredibly concerning to see the Leader of the Opposition pass on that bill for her large home to the taxpayer.”
Under the House of Commons rules, MPs who represent constituencies outside London are entitled to claim for the costs of working in two places – in Westminster and their constituencies. This can cover for hotel stays, the cost of renting a second home or for the bills at an extra property that they own. Those who are renting are given a bigger budget for up to three dependent children. Mrs Badenoch is married with three young children and so is entitled to a larger claim.
The constituency house she has chosen has five bedrooms as well as a kitchen and three living rooms. The sixth bedroom is in a separate guest annexe with its own sitting room, bathroom and kitchen. It is described as a “stunning Grade II listed detached farmhouse which has been beautifully renovated throughout” and has “beautiful extensive gardens”.
The Tory leader currently claims £2,700 a month in rent for the property we have found just 50 miles from Westminster in her North West Essex constituency. We understand it actually costs more than this and that Hamish Badenoch, her banker husband, tops up her allowance to cover the additional rent. But Mrs Badenoch is claiming the top-rate council tax in full.
Just six properties in one thousand in England fall into Band H – these are the most expensive 200,000 homes in the country. The commonest council tax band is the cheapest, Band A, with 24% of properties. Last year, Mrs Badenoch’s total claim was £36,244.65, which was £1,205.35 short of her limit of £37,450.00.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which is responsible for MPs expenses, says this is the “standard budget for renting a property outside the London area, with an uplift to cover the cost of three dependants”. We are not revealing the location of the property.
We understand the Badenochs have a main home in London and visit Essex at weekends. Hamish Badenoch, a top banker at Deutsche Bank, also owns a flat in Wimbledon which he appears to rent out.
Our investigation comes days before most households around the country face the council tax hikes of 5%. Some councils have applied for permission for higher increases of up to 10%. It means the typical band D householder will have seen their council tax soar by 20% in just five years. Mrs Badeboch tried to capitalise on this by saying, “Look at Labour councils. Labour councils always cost you more and deliver less.”
But she was less vocal about her own council tax bill. Her spokesman declined to comment. We have examined the expenses claims of the MPs for the nine constituencies bordering Mrs Badenoch’s. Four of them claim no accommodation costs and three of these are classed as “London-area” MPs who are not entitled to claim.
Mrs Badenoch’s council tax expenses claim is nearly twice as high as the next largest claim. James Cleverley in Braintree and Anthony Browne in South Cambridgeshire each claimed £2024 in council tax last year. Overall, Mrs Badenoch had the 23rd highest accommodation claim out of 664 MPs last year. Most of the more expensive claims were for MPs who live much further from London.
Her accommodation expenses claims are up around £10,000 a year from 2020. In that year she switched her second home – it is unclear why the former property was unsuitable. In the last Parliament, 147 MPs made no accommodation claims. 96 of these were London MPs who were not entitled to claim. The others were MPs who could have claimed but chose not to.
They included former Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak, MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire, and Theresa May, MP for Maidenhead, who have never claimed accommodation costs. Other senior Tories who did not claim for a second home last year, though they could, include Gillian Keegan, former MP for Chichester, Jeremy Hunt, MP for Godalming and Ash, Michael Gove, former MP for Surrey Heath, Nadhim Zahawi, former MP for Stratford-on-Avon, Jesse Norman, MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, Shailesh Vara, former MP for North West Cambridgeshire, Nadine Dorries, former MP for Mid Bedfordshire, Sajid Javid, former MP for Bromsgrove and Alok Sharma, former MP for Reading West.
They also include two MPs who are now surviving as members of Mrs Badenoch’s shadow cabinet – Priti Patel, MP for Witham and Shadow Foreign Secretary and Claire Coutinho, MP for Surrey East and Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Some MPs declined to claim for accommodation costs last year even though they live far from Westminster. They include Tories Jacob Rees Mogg, former MP for North East Somerset, and John Penrose, former MP for Weston-super-Mare, Labour’s Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central and Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central, and Plaid Cymru’s Ben Lake, MP for Ceredigion Preseli.
