MPs' Expenses: Conservative Charged £375 A Month For Mobile Phone Bills

Guardian 'crowd-sourcing' experiment also reveals Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans claimed for four digital cameras in space of 18 months

A Tory MP charged the taxpayer £375 a month for four years for his mobile phone bills and claimed for four digital cameras in just 18 months, it has been revealed.

The expenses claims by Nigel Evans, the MP for Ribble Valley, in Lancashire, came to light as a result of the Guardian's unique "crowd-sourcing" experiment, which asked readers to help journalists trawl through the hundreds of thousands of pages of censored documents released by the Commons last month.

The cameras bought by Evans between May 2006 and November 2007 cost between £199 and £387, with the prices sometimes including memory cards and, in one instance, a camera case.

His mobile phone bills, with Vodafone and O2, came to an average of £404 a month in 2004-05, £389 in 2005-06, £418 in 2006-07 and £289 in 2007-08.

The average figure over four years was £375. Evans's highest monthly bill, for £686.34, was from Vodafone in June 2006.

Telephone costs are allowed under the rules set out in the Green Book, which governs MPs' expenses, while cameras could conceivably come under "purchase of hardware and software".

But claims are only allowed for "expenditure that it was necessary for a member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her parliamentary duties".

Asked why his mobile bills were so high, Evans said it was "due to the fact of roaming [costs] when abroad".

"I still keep in touch with constituents and journalists, so when they phone me I still pick up a hefty chunk of the charges," he explained.

He pointed out that roaming charges were "coming down or being shelved" by many telephone companies, and added: "I will be turning my phone off when abroad and getting my staff to text me any calls I must make.

"I will prioritise them more effectively, hence lower charges."

Of the four cameras, the Conservative MP said: "We are currently using two in the office here ... and one broke, and one was stolen at some stage ... so we are currently operating the two.

"I have bought a video camera at my own expense at the tail end of last year [and] I will use it as a digital camera if necessary."

Guardian reader Tony Hacking brought Evans's expenses to the paper's attention. Evans is his MP.

He said he had compared his accounts with those of Jack Straw, a neighbouring MP, and found that while Straw's appeared to be "straightforward and businesslike", Evans's "seemed more like indulging an interest in electronic gadgets".

Hacking said: "I have worked in business where expenses were fairly but scrupulously expected to be fully explained.

"I have also worked at a senior level in a high school where auditors expected and checked to ensure that I could account for every laptop, mouse and keyboard.

"The governors of the school knew how I was spending every pound of the £2.5m budget."

He said he did not believe Evans's expenses were in the same league as those of some MPs, "but they do look offhand and casual in a way that, if I had the same approach, there would have been serious questions raised about my positions in business and education".

He added: "I have certainly known of headteachers who have been dismissed for 'financial irregularities' of the kind which some MPs have dismissed as 'within the rules'."

Hacking said he was angry that MPs had "muddied the water" since the Telegraph first obtained an unedited disk of expenses details and began publishing revelations in May.

Parliamentarians, he said, had "prevaricated so that the issue is still unresolved and things will drift back to the usual".

"Perhaps MPs should show the same professionalism as teachers and work throughout the recess to develop a framework of professional standards for politicians," he added.

The Guardian's exercise has yielded hundreds of pieces of information from readers, which reporters will continue to examine.

Reader Ian Fairbarn pointed out that Oliver Heald, the Conservative MP for Hertfordshire North East, had on two occasions double claimed for the same month's £250 worth of petty cash.

In both September and October 2007, Heald claimed for September's £250, while in both November and December 2006 he claimed for November's £250.

The MP said the double claims were due to "administrative errors where months were inadvertently mismarked", adding: "I did not claim for other months in each year, so the annual totals did not exceed the maximum."

Without commenting on the individual case, a spokesman for the Commons Department of Resources said this behaviour would probably fall within the rules.

Another reader, Mike Ion, discovered that Mark Pritchard, the Tory MP for the Wrekin, had claimed £131.60 for placing a Conservative advert in the Telford Journal.

The Department of Resources spokesman said MPs were not allowed to claim for the costs of any party political campaigning.

Pritchard said: "From my recollection, this advert was for a surgery." This would not be party political.

Click here to analyse your own MP's expenses.

The Secret Documents That Reveal Tory Plans For Social Cleansing Of The Poor In West London

Hammersmith & Fulham Council has recently announced plans to demolish 3,500 homes on estates they have declared “not decent neighbourhoods”. The full story in Evening Standard's article "Plot to rid council estates of poor".

Why?

Secret documents I have just recovered through an FoI request reveal that the Conservative Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, Stephen Greenhalgh, told senior Conservative Party officials that council estates are “ghettoes”. The people who live there “add to the welfare cost of Government” and “have fallen into a cycle of unemployment and dependency”. “We (the taxpayer)” get “no return”. “What is needed” is “a solution to concentrations of deprivation”.

As part of the process exposed by the documents, the Council gathered together a secret group of people to discuss this. Someone asked: “What is a ‘Poor person’?” Someone else said Fulham Court “is not a place, it is a barrack for the poor”. Yet another suggested the 2,000 strong White City estate was “an ideal place to develop and deliver a ‘master plan’”. And someone else said it was “hard to get rid of people”.

Participants acknowledged “’Porteresque’ accusations of gerrymandering or social engineering needed to be faced head on”. Hence: “funding needed for political problem of management”, and “regeneration should not be stymied by a very few who object on spurious or ideological grounds”.

The “message” is “ownership empowers”, and “the Sacred Cows need to be shot!”. “We need to create mixed communities in concentrated areas of deprivation.”

Now, the Council has developed its “bulldozer argument” for its planning strategy - branding seven council estates containing 3,500 homes “not decent neighbourhoods”.

Using the language of social cleansing, and with no respect for age, vulnerability or human rights, the Tories propose to destroy communities on estates in Shepherds Bush, Hammersmith and Fulham. The sites will be used mainly for commercial development like hotels and conference centres. There would be a reduction of social rented homes by up to a third, and new housing for sale would be unaffordable to local residents.

In the meantime, all but health and safety repairs to the properties would cease and flats would be let on a temporary basis. Whole neighbourhoods are now blighted, with freeholders and leaseholders unable to sell, even though demolition could be years away. For the remaining social tenants in the borough – almost 40% of the population – there would be no prospect of re-housing for 20 years as the displaced residents took the few homes that become available.

But the targeted estates are places that all types of people wish to live – from pensioners and young families to first-time buyers and professionals. Many millions of pounds of public money have been spent on them under the Decent Homes programme. There is no need to destroy these communities. Residents are naturally furious at the proposals and don’t want to be forced into smaller homes at higher rents.

This is social engineering on a grand scale, and it is being recommended to the Conservative Party hierarchy as the way forward in housing: no security, high rents, no duty to house the homeless, not even right to buy.

The secret Council documents I have obtained suggest the Council’s policy to destroy communities they brand “not decent” may be unlawful, as well as immoral. Council officers are writing Tory party policy using council taxpayers money. But, far worse, poor and vulnerable people in my constituency are being used as guinea pigs in a dishonest and destructive socio-political experiment.