New Labour Shadow Chancellor Made Mistakes On His Expenses

Ed Balls is married to Yvette Cooper, and together they were actually the first husband and wife team to serve at the same time in the UK government.

In May 2005, when Ed Balls became the elected Member of Parliament for Normanton, Miss Cooper "flipped" her second home to the family house she shared with her husband and their three children in south London. The couple both began claiming an equal share of the £1,466 monthly mortgage interest, a sum of £733 each compared with the £530 that Miss Cooper had been paying in Yorkshire.

At this time, their mortgage statements showed the monthly interest element of their mortgage at £733.

Just two years later, in May 2007, the couple moved yet again, to a larger, £655,000 property in North London which they then designated as their second home. Their joint mortgage interest payments increased to just over £1,031 for each of them.

Not surprisingly they also claimed the £2,000 cost of removal vans and men against their parliamentary expenses.

There was a point when, after officials had advised them that they had submitted the identical claim, for the month of July 2006, that Miss Cooper and Mr Balls, the Children's Secretary and a close ally of Gordon Brown, had their expenses docked, for mortgage interest of nearly £1,300.

Ed Balls and Miss Cooper made regular monthly claims for food, often totalling up to £600.

MPs were entitled to claim up to £400 a month on their second-home allowance, but by each of them taking advantage of this, they were able to claim substantially more for a single household.

In total in the year 2007/08, they claimed £24,400 (2006/07 £31,900) between them in respect of their second home allowance, which is just a little over the £23,000 that could have been claimed by an individual Member of Parliament but less than the maximum for two members which would amount to £46,000.

In June 2008, Mr Balls and Miss Cooper were both referred to the parliamentary watchdog over the designation of their second home, amid suggestions that it was not in order for them to be claiming expenses in respect of their family house in London, where they lived during the week.

After an investigation, John Lyon, the Standards Commissioner, exonerated them. He said that he accepted that their motivation was not profit, as they paid full capital gains tax after their move.

However it does seem to raise more questions than answers. The majority of employees do not get their food paid for do they?

Whilst it has been accepted by John Lyon that profit was not the motive undoubtedly having the benefit in owning a much larger house in an affluent area of London on which the interest element is being paid is undoubtdly a great benefit. To me this kind of financial planning puts them in the same league as a Tax Exile.

When this all came into the public domain they said "After taking the advice of the Fees Office in May 2005, Yvette changed the designation of her second home to London.

As with all Politicians it can never be their fault the blame always lies with some one else!

The actual details of their salaries and expenses for the years 2004/2005 to 2007/2008 are set out below:-

Yvette Cooper - Job: Chief secretary to the Treasury - Salary: £141,866 Ed Balls Employment: Secretary of State for Children, Schools & Families Salary: £141,866 That makes a Grand total of £283,732. Seems like a nice little earner to me!

The second home claims for Yvette Cooper are as follows:-

2004/05 £19,428 2005/06 £14,234 2006/07 £15,995 2007/08 £12,219

The Second home claims for Ed Balls are as set out below:-

2004/05 Not elected 2005/06 £13,618 2006/07 £15,979 2007/08 £12,219

So the totals claimed for each year were 2004/05 £19,428 2005/06 £27,852 2006/07 £ 31,974 2007/08 £ 24,438

As you can see from the above figures that Ed Miliband the Labour leader has made a choice of shadow chancellor who is a genuis in dealing with his own finances but I very much doubt if he could deal the finances of the UK as he is far too busy looking after him self!


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