Mark Hendrick 'flipped; his designated second home to his constituency address after making claims on a London flat.Mark Hendrick, the MP for Preston, said he had found it difficult to work out how much the interest element of the mortgage on his London flat came to, and so tried to “work on an average for the year”.
Under parliamentary rules, MPs may claim for the interest on a second home but not the capital repayment.
Mr Hendrick regularly submitted claims for between £900 and £1,015 a month on his London flat, before “flipping” his second home designation to a house in his constituency, where his claims rose to £1,469.
When contacted by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Hendrick insisted that he had always acted in line with the rules but refused to disclose his mortgage documents to confirm his statement. He said he regularly provided the Commons fees office with copies of his mortgage documents. None appears on files seen by The Daily Telegraph.
Asked why his mortgage interest varied from month to month, Mr Hendrick said: “My mortgage was a capital plus interest mortgage. Therefore, payments included both, and I did not know until the end of the year from my statement exactly how much of the payment was interest, therefore I tried to work on an average for the year as a whole.
“However, at the end of each year, this was always rectified with an accurate interest figure derived from my statement.
“The fees office have had detailed mortgage information from my bank over the 2004 to 2008 period concerned. I shall be happy to provide them with any further information they require.”
In 2008, Mr Hendrick submitted a one-off claim for £1,344.54, saying that this was for “unclaimed mortgage”. Similar claims did not appear for other years.
He said: “I was trying to ascertain the correct amount and on occasions phoned my bank to work out what changes there were in interest over the months of that financial year. My estimate at the time was as you indicate.”
The records show that hundreds of other MPs were able to obtain accurate monthly interest statements from their lenders, even when their mortgages included a repayment element.
Mr Hendrick also submitted regular expenses for furniture and decorating work in March, just before the end of the financial year and the annual deadline for submissions under the additional costs allowance, which MPs used to fund a second home.
These included claims for a bed for £1,590, which the fees office reduced to £1,000.
In a letter to officials, the MP argued that he should be paid the full cost of the bed, saying: “This is the first bed I have bought since I was elected six years ago, and I can now wake up in the morning without aching, which was a problem with my previous bed. I would hope, therefore, that you will honour this claim in full.”
A number of Mr Hendrick’s claims, including the bed, a television costing £599.99 and washer-dryer for £799.90, were purchased in Preston, at a time when his London flat was designated as his second home. He insisted that all the furniture was correctly claimed for, and denied that his purchases were “unreasonable or excessive”.
Claims for £2,616.12 for new doors, £1,522 for glazing, and £1,137 for new fences, gates and were “necessary maintenance and repair,” he added.
Mr Hendrick said he moved his designation after he returned to the back benches in 2007, having been demoted from his post as an aide to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary.
Mark Hendrick
Job: Labour MP for Preston
Salary: £64,766
Total second home claims
2004-05: £20,902
2005-06: £21,471
2006-07: £21,867
2007-08: £16,226
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