Seven days after telling the Journal he did not expect to appear in the more sensational columns of the Daily Telegraph on the subject of his expenses, Leominster Tory MP Bill Wiggin was forced to admit he had claimed a total of more than £11,000 during 23 consecutive months on the wrong house.
Under the ‘second home’ parliamentary rule, which allows MPs to claim expenses under the Additional Costs Allowance scheme to cover money they have paid out to cover London accommodation associated with their work in the Commons, Mr Wiggin had claimed for a mortgage and expenses on his Herefordshire home near Colwall, Ledbury, on which there was no mortgage.
The MP had initially claimed his expenses against his London home, but soon after he bought the Colwall property in 2004 he used his Herefordshire address on forms he personally submitted to the Commons fees office.
In December 2006 the MP changed the claim form address to his London home after the fees office asked for a bank or building society statement.
After the Daily Telegraph revelation, Mr Wiggin made it clear that claiming for his Colwall home had been “an honest mistake”, that the amounts claimed would have corresponded exactly to money he was entitled to claim for his London home, and that he had not benefited in any way. He had always meant to put his London address on his claim form.
In a statement he told the Journal: “I have not claimed a phantom mortgage. I have a real mortgage on my London second home. I have always claimed the mortgage interest on this house and have submitted my mortgage statement with my claim.
“The mortgage statement makes it clear that I have a London mortgage and how much it is and how much interest I pay. I also submitted an internal form. My mistake was to put the wrong address on the internal form.
“I have claimed the interest that I paid exactly and the statements and the forms all match.
“Yes I made a mistake by putting the wrong address on my internal forms and that is my fault. But it is not true that I have claimed public money on a mortgage that does not exist. It exists and I still pay it.
“I do not wish to be grouped with MPs who have claimed for mortgages which do not exist. As soon as I was told that I had been filling the forms out wrong I stopped and did them correctly.
“It would have been helpful if the mistake I made on my internal forms had been pointed out to me earlier but because a mortgage statement was also submitted it is possible that nobody noticed.
“I am committed to openness and support David Cameron’s lead on sorting this out. I have not claimed any money that I should not have but regret that I wrote down the wrong details on the internal form.
“I shall still be holding my public meeting in Leominster at 4pm next Wednesday so that people can talk about this and I can answer their questions.”
Tory party leader David Cameron, who joined the public school Eton in the same class as Bill Wiggin, supported his MP.
He told the media: “My team went through with Bill Wiggin very carefully what has happened. He had given us every assurance that every penny he claimed should have been claimed and it does look like it is – it is a bad mistake but it looks like it is an honest mistake and he was not claiming money that he was not entitled to.”
