Will Margaret Beckett please turn the thermostat down!

Browsing the 2012/13 file of MPs’ expenses, the entries frequently throw up more questions than they answer. Madeleine Moon, for example, Labour MP for a damp and cold Welsh constituency, only charges the public £70 a year for her gas, with bills not exceeding £10 a month even during the Winter. In contrast, Margaret Beckett’s claims for gas are inexplicable:-

Now Beckett is further disadvantaged in that her entries are bare of the sort of additional information – charge periods, supplier details – that add verisimilitude to the claims of her colleagues. If I were the IPSA or one of Beckett’s constituents I would want to drill further – by FOI or whatever – for details of these ‘gas bills’. 

And it doesn’t help either that Beckett has ‘form’ - 
“Beckett was found to have claimed £600 for hanging baskets and pot plants by The Daily Telegraph in the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal. As she had no mortgage or rent outstanding it was queried how she managed to claim £72,537 between 2004 and 2008 on a house in her constituency when she was renting out her London flat and living in a grace and favour flat”.

Of course she’s no longer young and it may be that she simply forgets to turn the heating off when she leaves her ‘duty’ home. Either that or she’s neglecting the PM’s advice to ‘switch’ and is paying an over-greedy energy firm. Either way, it seems an outrageous waste of public money when so many hard working families can hardly afford to turn the gas on at all this Winter. Beckett clearly needs some expert intervention on the nation’s behalf.