Mark Pack

London MP, with a constituency only 28 minutes away by Tube from Parliament, claims £12,041 for a second home. Sounds a straight-forward case in the long line of London MPs who had their expense claims widely publicised and heavily criticised during earlier this year? Except this time, there’s one difference.

The expense claim was published back in October 2004, got a bit of local media coverage and that was that.

Lucky man, that David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham.

From the Haringey Advertiser, 27 October 2004:

HARINGEY taxpayers have been forking out for Tottenham MP David Lammy to rent a second home in south London.

Mr Lammy admitted the expense in the first published account of MPs’ spending, and is among 32 outer London MPs claiming the second home allowance, worth up to £20,333 a year…

Mr Lammy said he stayed at the second home for three nights a week when he was working at Westminster, spending the rest of his week at his main home on the Harringay Ladder, 28 minutes from Westminster by tube.

He claimed £12,041 for the home between April 2003 and March 2004.