‘Millionaire’ Medway MP named and shamed in Telegraph expenses investigation

Medway’s Labour MP, the Right Honourable Bob Marshall-Andrews QC MP, is amongst the latest to be named and shamed by the Daily Telegraph in their expenses expose.

The left-wing MP, who has long been a fierce critic of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments, was attacked for claiming ?118,000 in expenses at his second home, listed as a Rochester flat bought in 1999. His first home is in Richmond, London, just ten minutes from Parliament.

Mr Marshall-Andrews made excessive claims since being narrowly re-elected in 2005, including ?750 on a ‘multi-room audio system’ and ?830 on a DVD recorder, digital satellite TV package and other electrical goods. He claims that these were met from the wrong allowances in error.

‘They are mainly for office use and should have been so claimed,’ he told the Daily Telegraph yesterday. ‘To suggest that a parliamentary office can function without either is patently absurd.’

Despite the claims, Mr Marshall-Andrews was described as a ‘millionaire’ by the Western Telegraph in an article discussing his ‘holiday home’ – a ?1m house in Druidston, Pembrokeshire, named the ‘Malator’.

His London home could be worth around ?3.5m – the amount a similar house on the same street was sold for in March. The flat above his second home in Rochester fethced ?210,000 in 2007.

The Daily Telegraph is releasing MPs’ expenses details on a daily basis and neither of the other two Medway MPs have been shown to have made excessive expenses claims so far.