FactCheck: Smith's expenses 'fair'?
Updated on 07 April 2009
Home secretary Jacqui Smith has made a vigorous defence of her use of parliamentary expenses. But do her claims stack up? FactCheck investigates.
The claim
"The test I set for myself is whether or not that in order to do my job properly, for which I have to live in two places, what I have claimed is fair and reasonable. I do spend more time in London than I spend in Redditch, which is the rationale for where your main home is."
Jacqui Smith, home secretary, Channel 4 News at Noon
The background
Jacqui Smith may not appreciate it, but home secretary is a wholly appropriate job title given it is her home (or homes, together with the odd blue movie) that has plunged her into recent controversy.
The Redditch MP faced further questions on expenses today, and again attempted to explain why she had designated her sister's house in south London as her main home, rather than the family and constituency home in Worcestershire.
The controversial decision allowed Smith to claim up to £23,083 a year in expenses for staying at the constituency home, as it was deemed as costs incurred by staying away from her main home in London.
She claimed £22,948 for stays in Worcestershire in 2007/8, just £135 under the maximum limit.
The "rationale" for this decision, Smith told Channel 4 News today, was that she spent more time in London than Worcestershire, and that what she had claimed was "fair and reasonable".
So, was Smith's reasoning "reasonable"?
The analysis
All MPs are given The Green Book, which details what they can claim on expenses.
In this instance, the controversy centres on Smith's use of the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA), also known as the second home allowance.
It reimburses MPs "for expenses wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred when staying overnight away from their main UK residence."
The aspect of interest in this regard is that the home secretary has not classed her family home in Worcestershire as her main home.
That means every night she stays with husband Richard Timney and two sons, she can claim an allowance - because she is not staying at her "main" residence in London, her sister's house.
It is a peculiar concept for the public to grasp. Being able to claim thousands of pounds in expenses for staying with the hubby and kids might appear odd.
But Smith said today the "reality" of her career, namely being home secretary as well as a MP, means she ends up spending most of her time in London.
Fair enough, you would assume. It is a demanding job.
The Green Book states that ACA is paid as reimbursement "for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties" but not, it is worth noting, for ministerial duties - ministerial duties for which Smith receives a £78,575 a year salary on top of the £63,291 a year MP's salary.
So if she has designated the London property as her main home, as a by-product of the time consuming nature of ministerial and parliamentary duties combined, then is it really "fair" that she's using ACA, which is purely supposed to relate to the work of an MP representing their constituents?
If Smith already gets £78,575 a year for being a minister, is it really "fair" that she can claim almost £23,000 via a parliamentary related expenses? After all, it is seemingly due to the extra ministerial commitments which mean she has to be in London more than your average backbencher.
Other key terms to note from the Green Book are warnings to MPs that ACA claims should be "above reproach", "that there should be no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money", and members "must avoid any arrangement which may give rise to an accusation that you are, or someone close to you is, obtaining an immediate benefit or subsidy from public funds or that public money is being diverted for the benefit of a political organisation."
Strong words.
Jacqui Smith'Other ministers who have lived in grace and favour apartments have faced newspaper headlines suggesting that they are taking advantage of the taxpayer by living there.'
But what does the Green Book specifically say about which property a MP can designate as their main home, thereby determining which property they are allowed to claim the £23,000-a-year send home allowance?
It says: "The location of your main home will normally be a matter of fact. If you have more than one home, your main home will normally be the one where you spend more nights than any other."
Despite neighbours testaments to the contrary, Smith says that she spends the majority of her time in London.
She spent a maximum of 165 days of last year sitting as an MP in Parliament. That is the total number of days Parliament sat - less than half of the year.
But, of course, Smith stressed today that the obligations of being home secretary naturally lead to her spending extra time working in the capital.
Indeed, before the rules changed in 2004, all ministers were assumed to have their main homes in London.
So if Jacqui Smith can prove she spends the majority of her time in London is she "above reproach"? Well, maybe not.
A decision by the standards commissioner John Lyon sort to clarify exactly when a home is a main home.
The 2007 ruling - focussing on the "matter of fact" expression from the Green Book, stated: "If a member has his or her family living permanently in their constituency home and has modest accommodation in London big enough only for themselves, and which they use only when Parliament is in session, then it would clearly seem to be a matter of fact that member's main home is in the constituency."
Smith's defence is that she uses the London flat all year round for home secretary's work and the obligations of being an MP, even though, as FactCheck has shown, the ACA relates to "parliamentary duties" rather than well-paid ministerial ones.
A further ruling detailed in a select committee on standards and privileges report perhaps creates an even bigger headache for Smith's "fair and reasonable" boasts.
It said: "Where there is genuine doubt about a main home and the considerations are evenly balanced, then the member and the Department [of Resources] should give particular weight to ensuring that the home the member designates as their main home results in a smaller claim on the ACA than would be the case if they designated the other property."
On this score it appears Smith is on thin ice, as the cost of sharing a house with her sister is highly unlikely to top the £22,000-plus she claims a year for staying at the family home in Worcestershire, unless her sister wanted to charge her an exorbitant near £2,000 a month rent.
There is another element to throw into the mix too - the fact that, as a government minister, Jacqui Smith was entitled to a traditional grace-and-favour flat in central London, which would have absolved her of the need to claim any second home allowance.
The six-bedroom Belgravia property is now, post-credit crunch, valued at £4m. But it has been empty for more than two years and is on the market.
On her website Smith points out that the proposed sale could net millions of pounds for the taxpayer and that: "Other ministers who have lived in grace and favour apartments have faced newspaper headlines suggesting that they are taking advantage of the taxpayer by living there, so I think this is probably an area where we're damned if we do and damned if we don't!"
A "fair" point, perhaps.
The verdict
As always with Commons rules there are significant grey areas. But Smith's claim that her rationale was clear, and that the expenses claims were "fair and reasonable" are undermined by the fact the ACA relates specifically to parliamentary duties, not those of the home secretary, and the ruling the MPs should seek the cheapest second home allowance option.
FactCheck rating: 4
How ratings work
Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.
The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.
In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.
The sources
MPs expenses rules
Jacqui Smith's personal website
Grace-and-favour flat
Your views
You've read the article, now have your say. We want to know your experiences and your views. We also want to know if there are any claims you want given the FactCheck treatment.
Email factcheck@channel4.com
FactCheck will correct significant errors in a timely manner. Readers should direct their enquiries to the editor at the email address above.
