The DUP have topped the polls in parliamentary expenses claims, with Jim Shannon’s hitting almost a quarter of a million pounds in 12 months.
The Strangford MP’s claim for £237,427 was more than £87,000 higher then the average for the UK’s 650 MPs.
Sinn Fein’s Órfhlaith Begley who travels to London for meetings but abstains from taking her seat in Westminster, claimed the least at £8,036 for the same period.
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Ten years on from the UK parliamentary expenses scandal, we can today reveal information from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and the latest figures available from January and December last year.
Mr Shannon’s expenses include office and accommodation costs plus pay for eight staff members.
He claimed £237,427 in total with £150,814 of the amount claimed on staffing costs, £29,830 on travel, £20,207 on office costs, and £15,810 on accommodation.
The average cost of expenses claimed in 2018 works out as £150,340 for every UK MP who claimed and all 10 of the DUP MPs’ expense claims exceeded that figure.
Northern Ireland’s only Independent MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, claimed well below the average at £134,183.
The total for the 18 local MPs stand at £2.8 million from the total claim of £113 million from all MPs on the register since January 2018.
Most of that - £86 million - was money to pay MPs’ staff and a further £12 million on office costs.
Another £4 million went on “winding up costs” for MPs who no longer sit in the commons.
The top four MPs for expenses claims in 2018 were all from Northern Ireland or Scotland who have to regularly travel further distances to London, meaning bills for transport and accommodation tend to be higher.
The MP that claimed the least was Sinn Fein member Órfhlaith Begley who claimed £8,036, of which £7,059 was to cover office costs.
However some MPs may not have claimed at all, so would not appear on the register.
IPSA was set up after the scandal in 2009, and collates records on every MP expenses claim.
The latest information only goes up to December 7, which means it’s likely figures for the year will change as more expenses are added.
Some of the expenses are grouped together and filed at the end of the financial year, and therefore the totals will cover some 2017 expenditure.
However, as the information for the end of the 2018-19 financial year isn’t yet published, the figures should mostly even out.
DUP total claimed: £1,885,121
SF total claimed: £820,417
Independent total claimed £134,183
Jim Shannon DUP : £237,427
- MP Accommodation: £15,810.49
- MP Travel : £29,830
- Office : 20,207
- Staff travel: £20,766
- Staffing: £150,814
Jeffrey Donaldson DUP : £213,004
David Simpson DUP : £198,037
Ian Paisley DUP : £189,627
Nigel Dodds DUP : £186,737
Sammy Wilson DUP : £182,692
Gavin Robinson DUP : £177,099
Gregory Campbell DUP : £177,318
Paul Maskey SF : £176,620
Emma Little Pengelly DUP : £171,115
Francie Molloy : £168,367
Paul Girvan DUP : £152,064
Micky Brady SF : £141,878
Sylvia Hermon Independent : £134,183
- MP Accommodation: £9,772.96
- MP Travel : £12,809
- Office : £12,279
- Staff travel: £1,024
- Staffing: £98,298
Chris Hazzard SF : £123,215
Elisha McCallion SF : £96,637
Michelle Gildernew SF : £87,664
Orfhlaith Begley SF : £8,036
- MP Accommmodation: £977
- MP Travel : £7,059
TOTAL Northern Ireland: £2.8million
The total expense claim for the UK's MPs amounts to £112.9million
- Staffing: £86,385,688
- Office : £11,579,259
- Accommodation : £8,023,237
- Winding Up : £3,915,367
- MP Travel : £2,163,937
- Staff Travel : £741,416
- Dependant Travel : £60,132
- Miscellaneous Expenses : £34,997
Mr Shannon and Ms Begley were approached for comment.
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