John Maples claims Pall Mall club as main home: MPs' expenses

Mr Maples, the former shadow defence secretary, submitted claims for the maximum allowed for his second home in Oxfordshire while registering the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall as his principal residence for a month while he was moving house.

After leaving the club, he gained the approval of the Commons fees office to designate what he called a “self-contained flat in the house of friends” as his main residence for six months before he purchased a new property in the capital.

Records relating to the Stratford-on-Avon MP’s claims between 2004 and 2008 show that he consistently nominated his detached house in Banbury as his second home for additional costs allowances (ACA).

An insurance policy for the two homes shows that the annual premium for the Oxfordshire house was £2,336 compared with £278 for the London property.

Mr Maples’s wife, Jane Corbin, an award-winning reporter for the BBC’s Panorama programme, is named on the mortgage document and other bills relating to the Oxfordshire home.

The Daily Telegraph’s investigation into parliamentary expenses has highlighted how many MPs apparently considered their allowances to be an entitlement rather than reimbursement for expenses actually incurred in the course of their duties.

In a letter to the fees office in March 2006, Mr Maples, a senior figure within the Tory party who was first elected as an MP in 1983, wrote: “There is an unclaimed balance on my ACA for the current year of £1,364.65 and I attach a form claiming this amount.” He was paid despite failing to submit receipts for these “expenses”. A month later, he wrote again with a list of his anticipated costs for the coming year, adding: “I hope it will therefore be in order for me to claim the maximum of £1,835 p.m without submitting details on each occasion.”

The records also show that the MP regularly submitted claims under his ACA for £260 a month for “utilities”. When told by the fees office that all expenses above a threshold of £250 needed to be accompanied by receipts, Mr Maples began submitting claims for utilities of £240 a month.

The following year, Mr Maples was in contact with officials again to complain that his expenses had been docked by £900. He claimed that he had not received a letter notifying him he that would need to submit documents relating to his mortgage before he could be paid. He wrote: “I am very unhappy about my ACA being arbitrarily reduced like this and have written a strong letter of complaint to [redacted].

“I never received this letter. Surely a telephone call would have been easier and more appropriate.”

At present, it costs £100 a night to stay at the 100-year-old RAC club. Membership fees are £1,125 on top of the £2,600 price to join.

Asked to explain his claims, Mr Maples denied declaring the club as his main home, saying that it had been his “London base”. He said that the arrangement was approved by the fees office, adding: “Had the fees office expressed any doubt at all, I would have refunded what I had been paid during that period.

“I believe that everything I have claimed on the ACA has been a properly incurred property-related expense and that I can produce receipts for almost everything.”

He said the insurance costs of his London home were included in his annual service charge, and that his own policy only covered contents.

John Maples

Job: deputy chairman of the Conservative Party

Salary: £64,766

Total second home claims

2004-05: £20,867

2005-06: £21,634

2006-07: £22,046

2007-08: £23,000