4:51pm Thursday 11th March 2010
By Ian Mason
MPs Alan and Ann Keen were today ordered to repay £1,500 after breaking expenses rules by claiming for a second home they were living in full-time.
Parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon described the claims as “a serious breach of the rules involving significant public funds”.
The husband and wife, who class their main home as being in Brentford, were ruled to have wrongly claimed for a second home near Waterloo, which they lived in between June 2009 to October 2009 while the other property was refurbished.
A formal complaint was made against the pair in June last year after a Brentford resident alleged that their “main home” had been abandoned and boarded up for months - prompting an investigation by Mr Lyon.
The Keens said this week in a statement: “We accept in full the verdict of the committee, and are grateful that the members acknowledge the strong mitigating circumstances in our case.”
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