What Hugo Swire costs & claims from the taxpayer

Hugo Swire. Returning to auctioneering full time?

In case any East Devon electors were interested to know what their incumbent Conservative MP, Hugo Swire, costs the public purse Zorro has pulled together the information about his expenses claims for the past three years and they are set out below in a handy table.

IPSA. Overseeing Parliamentarians' expenses

Unfortunately the information, which has been taken directly from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s website doesn’t allow each year’s claim to be compared heading by heading, except for the total amount claimed. But it gives you a good idea of what Hugo (and his wife) are costing the taxpayer each year. And each year the cost has risen unlike that of the workers in the public sector whose salaries have been kept screwed down by Hugo and his Conservative colleagues in government.

Hugo Swire MP – Annual Expenditure Claim

	2012/13 £	2011/12 £	2010/11 £
Office Costs	2,857.30	5,351.41	5,587.91
Staffing Expenses	3,960.00	nil	nil
Staffing	n/a	n/a	75,502.59
General Admin	n/a	4,749.36	4,749.36
Miscellaneous Expenses	n/a	225.20	225.20
Payroll	119,1128.31	107,365.76	n/a
Accommodation	8,775.78	16,037.33	11,250.62
Travel & Subsistence	5,509.90	5,302.20	3,596.01
Total *	140,231.29	139,031.26	95,937.13
*Inc Alexandra Swire @ £34,999.00 pa

Source: Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

East Devon Watch. Looking over Hugo Swire's shoulder

Zorro’s good friends over at East Devon Watch http://eastdevonwatch.org/ seem, independently but simultaneously, to be following Hugo Swire’s financial interests too. They have summarised what Hugo’s declarations in the MPs’ Register of Interests at –
http://eastdevonwatch.org/2015/03/25/hugo-swire-hospitalty-benefits/.

TheyWorkForYou. A source of information about our MPs

To get a complete overview of Hugo’s hospitality and renummeration whilst an MP, go to http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11265.

Daily Telegraph. Put MPs' expenses under the microscope

It’s interesting that if you go back a few years Hugo’s name cropped up in a league table compiled by the Daily Telegraph about the 25 most ludicrous claims made at that point by MPs. Hugo comes in at number 20 in the league table for making a claim of £349 for a sat nav which in his claim he said was to "cover the 176.25 square miles of his constituency".

Satellite navigation. Absolutely needed to find your way around East Devon

Looking on Google today Zorro can find a Garmin sat nav for £59.99! Hugo’s sat nav must be an all singing, all dancing one! Alternatively Hugo could have popped into any petrol station and picked up a map of the whole of the UK for only a couple of pounds. But then, it’s not the price that he had to worry about was it?

In case you want to read the Daily Telegraph league table article in full - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5581638/MPs-expenses-25-most-ludicrous-claims.html.

18 months ago Hugo’s expense claims popped on a blog Another Angry Voice –

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/mp-energy-expenses-fuel-poverty.html.

Energy saving. If you spend £3,192 you really need to make energy savings

Here the blogger draws our attention to the £3,192 that Hugo had claimed for his energy costs. Zorro doesn’t know about you but it takes him and Mrs Zorro a while to rack up this level of energy cost. Perhaps Hugo likes the heating up high in his house(s).

The blog pointed out – “Another egregious claim was submitted by another Tory millionaire, the MP for East Devon Hugo Swire, who billed the taxpayer £3,192 to cover his energy bills. Just a few weeks previously he told his local newspaper that "The reason we are not introducing a price freeze is it simply won’t work. If we want the lights to stay on, consumers and taxpayers are, by some means or other, going to have to pay for it". It is absolutely clear that he believes the taxpayer are "going to have to" pay for his energy usage, but us common plebs ("consumers") "are going to have to" pay for our own, whether we can afford to subsidise outrageous corporate profiteering or not”.

Finally if you are interested in how Hugo has voted in the House of Commons, have a look at his voting record -

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/11265/hugo_swire/east_devon/votes

It’s time for change! It’s time for challenge!