Daily Mail – July 2010 – NOTE PARTICULARLY THE LAST SENTENCE BELOW!
“Two Tory Ministers have accused Commons expenses chiefs of wrecking their right to have a family house in their constituencies by slashing their second-home allowances.
Solicitor General Edward Garnier and Northern Ireland Minister Hugo Swire each charged around £24,000 a year expenses to cover the costs of renting elegant country homes in their constituencies, while living most of the year in private houses they own in London.
Mr Garnier claimed the maximum allowance of £24,006 last year for his beautiful house, Little Dalby Hall, which is on a 5,600-acre estate in Leicestershire.
His allowance this year to cover the rent has been slashed to £8,366.
Mr Swire’s claim for £23,103 to cover the cost of renting a large farmhouse in Devon has been reduced to £9,756.
Both have protested to IPSA, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, after they were told they can only claim for the equivalent of a one-bedroom flat.
Mr Garnier is said to have accused IPSA of turning MPs into ‘visiting country squires’.
He was backed by Mr Swire, who said the new system threatened to take politics back to pre-Victorian times when some MPs rarely visited their constituencies. …
… They deny they are trying to ‘have their cake and eat it’ by demanding the right to live like gents with two full-sized family homes – one in London and one in the country – with the second funded by the taxpayer. …
.. Mr Swire, 50, the MP for East Devon, is a close friend of David Cameron and related to the Swire Hong Kong trading dynasty.
Last year, he received £1,400 a month in second-home allowance to rent the pretty Lincombe Farmhouse near the Devon resort of Sidmouth. It has been cut to £812 a month, with extra for council tax and bills. He too complained the
ruling was unfair.
Mr Swire and wife Sascha and their two young children live in a £1 million house in the heart of affluent Fulham, West London. The property is owned by Mrs Swire.
Educated at Eton and St Andrews University, Mr Swire served with the Grenadier Guards before becoming a director of Sotheby’s auction house.
In his bachelor days, he dated Jerry Hall before she married Mick Jagger. The late Joe Strummer, singer with the punk band The Clash, was his brother-in-law.
A friend of Mr Swire said: ‘Hugo is not whingeing. If he is forced to give up his Devon house for a one-bedroom flat he could not take his children down there and so obviously would spend less time there. His constituents would lose out.
‘We will go back to the bad old days when MPs went to their constituencies once every five years before election time.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1291791/Youre-turning-MPs-visiting-squires.html
East Devon Watch 
If he is concerned that his second home should be in the constituency then why has he moved to Mid Devon? Is he entitled to claim an allowance for a home or base not in the constituency?
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It would be interesting to see some statistics about how much time he spent in Devon both before and after the IPSA expense changes, and whether it really did make a difference.
But Hugo’s comments were particularly stupid – if (for example) I was an employee for an East Devon company and required to work partly in East Devon and partly in London, then my employer would likely only provide a flat in one of these locations and expect me to live in the other (just like IPSA have done). BUT how much time I spent in each location would be dictated by the work I needed to do – I would be expected to be in East Devon as required to fulfil my role regardless of whether I had a nice cottage or a one bedroom flat here.
So it would appear from his comments quoted above that Hugo does NOT recognise that he is employed by the people of East Devon and is expected to come here as necessary.
And let us not forget that Hugo has stated recently that it is “not a problem to visit East Devon at this time of the year” – so not only does he see coming to East Devon as a visit rather than returning home, he also apparently feels that it is a problem to “visit” at other times of the year.
When will Hugo realise that his job is to represent the needs of his constituents, and that he should base himself and his family here (in a family home) and have a flat in London for when he is visiting Parliament??? !!!
(Compare and contrast with Claire Wright who actually lives here!!!)
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Well, he could have rented a small 2 bed flat – with 2 girls that is all anyone renting a council flat in East Devon would be allowed (if they were so lucky).
Back from a long spell out of the country, county and district – oh how it has changed in these few months! A real chance of fresh air very soon compared to the stink of the past few years!
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