MP to pay back money for ‘staff quarters’
By politics.co.uk staff
A Tory MP has agreed to pay back the £20,000 in tax and mortgage payments he claimed from taxpayer funds towards the staff quarters of his home.
Sir John Butterfill later sold the section of his house for £1.2 million.
But he told the BBC he had spent £500,000 renovating the half-derelict property, in Woking, and that any capital gain made would have therefore been “minimal”.
He would, however, review whether he had made any profit and pay back a “suitable” amount if he had.
Sir John is the latest victim of the Telegraph’s seemingly endless stream of expenses controversies.
The paper claimed he designated a six-bedroom house in Woking as his second home, allowing him to direct public funds towards its upkeep, while he lived in a smaller constituency flat as the main residence.
But the Woking property was designated his main residence when he came to sell it, meaning he was not liable for capital gains tax.
“The one mistake I made was that in claiming interest on the home, I didn’t separate from that the value of the servants’, or the staff, wing.
“And I claimed the whole of that and the whole of the council tax relating to that,” he told Newsnight.
“I cleared that with the fees office at the time. I wasn’t told I needed to separate out the part of the house that was being occupied by my gardener and his wife from the whole house.
“I understand now that I should have done that.”
Sir John decided to pay back £20,000 in claims after meeting with the Tories internal scrutiny panel.
