Brother of MP shopping questioned

12 April 2012

The brother of Tory MP Julie Kirkbride bought around £1,000 of electrical equipment using her parliamentary office expense account, it has emerged.

Among the items purchased by Ian Kirkbride was a digital camera, even though his sister had bought another camera on expenses the previous year, reported the Daily Telegraph.

Ms Kirkbride is the wife of Andrew MacKay, who was sacked as David Cameron's aide after it emerged he had claimed second home expenses of £23,000 a year on his London address despite not having a property in his Bracknell constituency.

He later announced he would step down as an MP at the next election.

The couple were living at an address in Ms Kirkbride's Bromsgrove constituency which was listed as her second home and his main residence for expenses purposes. However, Ms Kirkbride has resisted pressure to follow her husband's lead and stand down as she insists she has done nothing wrong.

Responding to the new allegations, she said: "My brother had the time to source things on the internet at the cheapest price. All the things that were bought were entirely in relation to my parliamentary duties."

Meanwhile, several members of the shadow cabinet used their office expenses to pay more than £150,000 to their local party associations, the Telegraph reported.

Alan Duncan paid £42,000 to the Rutland and Melton Conservative Association, while Michael Gove paid £27,000 to the Surrey Heath Conservative Association.

Liam Fox also pays £9,000 a year to the Woodspring Conservative Association in Bristol, while Andrew Mitchell is said to have paid Sutton Coldfield Conservative Association an annual sum of around £8,000 for the last four years.

The MPs have justified the amounts as paying for costs such as rent, office space and telephone services provided by the associations.

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