MPs will have to reveal second home ‘flipping’
By Liz Stephens
John Bercow has revealed that the next set of parliamentary expenses will include mandatory details from MPs on whether they have ‘flipped’ their second home.
The practice of home flipping was uncovered during the Daily Telegraph’s investigating into MP’s expenses. The paper revealed that MPs exploited the expenses system by claiming for improvements on one property and then changing their designated second home to refurbish another property.
The new rules will mean that MPs are no longer able to “redact” large amounts of information about their expenses.
However, the full addresses of second homes are unlikely to be made public and the claims will only indicate whether the property is in the MP’s constituency or in London.
Speaking about the matter Mr Bercow said he was confident the new rules would end the problem.
“The arrangements have been decided and I don’t think there’s going to be any significant problem in future in terms of detecting flipping,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“We’ve got to have a very narrow and legitimate set of things which are excluded from publication. Some redaction can be justified but it needs to be redaction of a very, very, very limited kind.”
Mr Bercow’s predecessor Michael Martin lost his job in the wake of the expenses scandal earlier in the year.
