| Expenses |
| The issue: |
Good Morning
I applaud the fact that you have published your expenses and so we can see what you are claiming and I am in little doubt that you have kept within the rules no matter how lose they have been.
My question which has been raised in the local press but appears unanswered is why do you need a second home when there are transport links back here are so good and trains run until after midnight?
Secondly why is there a sum for spouse rail travel, if I take my wife on any business then I pay not my employers?
Thirdly why do you claim for BT at the London residence and yet you also claim for a blackberry and further another £1300 last year on telecommunications costs?
I await your reply.
Thanks
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| Date Issue Raised: |
24 May 2009 |
| My response: |
Many thanks for the questions via my website.
On the first, the best way I can answer is by taking Monday May 11th. The House sat until 10 pm, when it voted. The voting went on until about 10.30pm. The next train to Andover – my local station - was the 11.35pm which gets in at 12.45 am. I would have got home at about 1am. The next morning I had to chair a Select Committee at 9.30. To be certain of being there, I would have had to catch the 7.35 train, getting in at 8.46.
The rules have recently been changed, and MP’s with constituencies within 20 miles are excluded from claiming. I live about 70 miles away.
On spouse travel, it is not quite like the business trip. We spend nearly half the year at Westminster. It is, I suppose, half way between a business trip, and being posted abroad, when the company would pay for spouse travel.
I claim for BT at my London flat because I need a telephone there. My telecommunication costs relate to a large extent to my constituency office in Andover, where I have two part-time staff, and where I work from on Fridays and Saturdays, and during the recess. We have fax, broadband and telephone lines, and it is a busy office.
Best wishes, George Young
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Sir George Young Bt MP: Constituency and Parliamentary Website 