Mortgage Paperwork

I see Sir Thomas Legg has said that mortgage claims made as part of MPS expenses must be accompanied by statements, rather than cover sheets. Failure to provide these statements means the MPs are liable to pay back all the mortgage interest they have claimed.

Kevin Barron, MP for the Rother Valley is one of those who claimed for mortgage interest without submitting statements.

Kevin, I hope you’ve kept copies of everything. Hopefully they will end up in the public domain as they always should have been, so we can see quite why your interest payments went up as much as they did, as you don’t seem keen to actually tell your constituents yourself.

Posted by Wordmobi

I’ll Post Soon

The two posts below are to remind me of the stories – I’ll expand them later – bit busy at the moment!

Any other ‘Kevin’ stories, do let me know!

ttfn

MPs ’should get pay rise and homes cash’ – The Star

Rother Valley MP Kevin Barron said the issue of MPs’ pay was a “major problem”, adding: “I agree it would be possible, but I suspect impractical, to increase the level of basic pay to form part of simplifying current arrangements.”

MPs ’should get pay rise and homes cash’ – The Star

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MPs’ submissions relating to family members made to the Kelly Committee – Telegraph

Kevin Barron, Labour MP for Rother Valley: “The essential thing is that they do the work they are paid for and that I can trust them implicitly, especially with confidentiality and the political sensitivities of the job.”

MPs’ submissions relating to family members made to the Kelly Committee – Telegraph

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Kevin Barron’s Expenses – Kevin Speaks

Well it seems that my conclusion that Kevin Barron was never going to say anything at all about his expenses in the hope that people would get bored asking and just sort of forget about them was somewhat flawed – for it seems the Rotherham Advertiser has managed to get some sort of response from him after publishing their story ‘Sack Them All’ about MPs expenses in this weeks issue.

Kevin’s office still haven’t got back to me as a mere constituent, despite assurances that they would, so perhaps I should just stick to taking things to the press in future.

With regard to his website claims, Kevin said

The website kevinbarronmp.com was only registered this year and is in the process of being constructed and populated. Previous domains were registered but I did not follow the work through as over the last 12 months I have other things on my mind.

This sounds fair enough on the surface, but doesn’t quite stack up. For a start, the largest invoice for work on a website was dated March 2007, which you don’t need me to point out is over two years ago, when, according to the invoice there was already a website to be ‘migrated’ and ‘changed’ at huge expense.

The key question that needs answering about this website though is who the company that did the work are. The invoice is apparently from a company called K&R Consultants, but I can find no record of them anywhere on the internet, and they have no VAT registration. The domain rothervalley.info is the only website listed as being Kevin’s that was registered on a date consistent with the date of the invoice from K&R Consultants, and that domain was registered by Kevin’s son Robbie Barron. Kevin – we need to know why it looks like a company has billed you way over the odds for a domain your son registered, and what happened to the website that you were billed for in March 2007.

The printer was bought for parliamentary business such as printing newsletters and mass-mailings. It has only been used for these purposes.

That’s as may be -although it was interesting when I spoke to one of your assistants that he pointed out that it couldn’t be used for party political purposes, which limits somewhat the uses it might be put to. Certainly I have never had any non-party political communication from you. They key question though is if an £8,500 printer is really necessary for your work. Perhaps you could give us examples of the sort of things you have printed with it, and the quantities involved?

It is true that at one time the interest on my mortgage was as high as £2,000 [per month] but I do not set mortgage interest rates.

Again, this sounds fair enough. However, as I posted a few days ago, the letters from the Nat West included in your expenses point to the amount you have borrowed rising by about £38,000 between June 2004 and January 2007. As there are no mortgage statements included and lots of the letters are balcked out it’s hard to make a definite conclusion, but certainly from the evidence that has come it looks like the capital sum has increased. Perhaps you would be so good as to clarify this for us? Has the size of your mortgage increased, and if so why? If it hasn’t, can you produce statements to show it hasn’t, because it certainly looks from the letters in your expenses that it has.

I haven’t time to respond to the rest of Kevin’s defence at the moment, although I am looking forward to responding to this one

The cameras I use personally inclcluding for my parliamentary work.

Gordon Brown’s Statement on Labour MPs Who Have Broken the Rules

From labour.org.uk

“I demand the very highest standards from Labour Members of Parliament. They came into politics to serve the public not themselves. But where there has been wrongdoing on expenses we owe it to the British people to take action.

“The current expenses regime must be reformed, and individual MPs must account for their expenses. Already, we have toughened the rules to ensure MPs must submit receipts to account for all their claims and any MPs with second jobs must declare them properly. I have asked for systematic independent scrutiny of every single expenses claim made in the last four years – with the power to decide what should be paid back.

“But I am committed to a complete clean up of the system so the work that MPs do to improve the lives of their constituents is not overshadowed by those who have broken the rules. Wherever immediate disciplinary action is required we will take it – including barring sitting MPs from re-standing as Labour candidates if necessary.”

It’ll be interesting to see what the “systematic independent scrutiny of every single expenses claim made in the last four years” makes of Kevin Barron’s expenses. I’m still waiting for a response from his office with regard to how his claims for expensive furniture, a very expensive printer, two expensive cameras, the interest on a mortgage that seems to have grown, a website that no-one can access and an accountant to do his personal tax return fit with Gordon Brown’s statement that “they [Labour MPs] came into politics to serve the public not themselves.”  I can’t see any way in which any of those claims have benefited the people of the Rother Valley, but as I say, Kevin Barron’s office told me they were definitely going to get back to me to explain, so I’m sure it’ll be clear soon.

Simon Jenkins – Nail, head, hit

Leaders and frontbenchers of both main parties have paid back money filched from taxpayers under a regime that would have prosecuted those taxpayers if they had done the same. This patent admission of guilt left them blandly claiming that they had “done nothing wrong”. In that case, why pay it back? Had the house-flipping and tax-dodging been isolated, the culprits would have been drummed from office. Instead, wrongdoing cleansed itself by strength in numbers. Hardly a member of this parliament will depart next year untainted by fiddle or fraud.

by Simon Jenkins, in The Guardian

A Visit to Kevin’s Office

I called in at Kevin Barron’s office in Dinnington yesterday, just to see the wonder of the £7,000 worth of furniture. Sadly all that greeted me in the waiting room were a few sad, worn, but perfectly serviceable chairs, and an old coffee table. I wasn’t allowed in to the office, but the member of staff I spoke with assured me that the furniture there is certainly not worth £7,000.

So one assumes the £7,000 worth of furniture Kevin Barron claimed for in March 2006  must be in his Westminster office, tiny as it must be. I asked for confirmation, and apparently someone is going to get back to me.

Whilst I was in the waiting room I noticed lots of pictures taken by Kevin dotted around. Very nice they were too, but none were taken in the Rother Valley – I’m not sure any were even taken in the UK. This remined me of Kevin’s claims for about £1,5oo of camera equipment. Sadly the staff weren’t able to confirm that either camera was in the office, although they did get to use them sometimes. They couldn’t though tell me how they benefitted the constituents of the Rother Valley. It was exaplained to me that they have to be careful as they can’t use the communications allowance to send out anything that is party political, which is why they don’t send out many leaflets. In light of this I asked why they needed an £8,438 printer. Although they could confirm the printer was in the building I wasn’t allowed to see it – heaven forfend that the public should be able to see something they bought – the staff couldn’t really say either way whether they needed such a behemoth or not, or whether it was used to it’s full potential.

Unsurprisingly they could shed no light on Kevin’s petty cash habit either. The person I was speaking too did try and call Kevin Barron for me to speak to, and I was surprised to note that he knew my surname without me telling him. Either he is very switched on, or there are not many people on Kevin’s ‘do not reply’ list. Unfortunately Kevin was busy with the Health Select Committee. It was suggested I attend a surgery to speak to Kevin and ask my questions about, what on the face of it, are claims that need more clarification. I don’t know if I will be able to take up this offer this week, but I made it quite clear that I felt it Kevin’s duty to go to the press and explain these issues himself, proactively, rather than waiting for his constituents to come and speak to him one at a time.

We will wait and see what happens.

Kevin Barron’s Mortgage Interest Claims

On re-reading the documents Kevin Barron has submitted, I have found a letter from Nat West in January 2007 informing Kevin Barron of an increase in interest rates that increased his mortgage payment to £2007.70 per month. The rate increased to 7.44%, which assuming Kevin borrowed the money over a standard 25 year term, points to a capital sum borrowed of £273,121.70.  This earlier letter, from June 2004, informs Kevin of a rate change to 6.54%, meaning at the time that his mortgage payments went up to £1592.91 per month, which points to a mortgage of £235,042.11.

So the two letters from the Nat West suggest that the amount of money owed to the Nat West by Kevin Barron (to remind you I’m assuming he borrowed the money over 25 years and that, as per the rules, Kevin is only charging mortgage interest to his expenses) increased by £38,079.59 between June 2004 and January 2007. This is another issue that Kevin Barron needs to explain to his constituents in the Rother Valley. Why does it seem from the paperwork we can see that the size of your mortgage went up by £38,000? Perhaps the perfectly innocent explanation lies under the black ink somewhere?

What is also intersting is that Kevin Barron’s mortgage claims are not backed up with statements, but only by these letters of rate changes. I haven’t yet managed to find one informing Kevin of a rate decrease. It’s an issue The Telegraph have not managed to get a response to. I do hope Kevin Barron isn’t just lying low and hoping it will be forgotten?

Kevin Barron’s Un-Redacted Expenses

The Telegraph had said they would publish the un-redacted expense claims of all MPs. Currently there are only two pages of Kevin’s on their website, which relate to his unexplained large jump in mortgage interest claims. They show a claim of £1791.72 in December 2005, rising to £2007.70 in September 2007.

We know from Kevin’s expenses that the mortgage he claims on his Additional Costs Allowance is with the National Westminster Bank. We can see from this document that the base rate of the bank was 4.5% in August 2005, and was either 5.75% or 5.5% in September 2007, which could explain the rise. It will be interesting to see how much he has claimed in the current financial year as interest rates have fallen again. Of course this assumes he is using one of Nat West’s standard variable mortgage products, but we don’t know for certain because the claims were so heavily redacted, and it is quite hard to get information from Kevin himself, what with him having a policy of not resoponding to my letters.

I’ve made some assumptions though – and bear in mind these are assumptions. If the interest only mortgage Kevin has charges interest at 0.5% above the  base rate, it points to a mortgage somewhere in the region of £300,000 to £315,000. Although that’s not an unrealistic amount  for a Westminster flat now (this studio currently for sale £285,000 looks quite nice, as does this flat for £295,000) it would have been an awful lot for a flat 1o years ago, or even 25 years ago, when Kevin as first elected. What we need to know as constituents is when Kevin bought his flat, how much he paid for it, and what he intends to do with the capital gain when he retires. Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us, Kevin?

I don’t know if The Telegraph will eventually publish all the documents in time, or will only ever publish the ones they are interested in. As ever, we’ll have to wait, or try and get the Telegraph interested in more documents.