Bernard Jenkin claims £50,000 in rent on farmhouse owned by sister-in-law

Mr Jenkin, an MP since 1992, currently represents North Essex.

Mr Jenkin, a former deputy chairman of the party, has been allowed until this August to pay his wife’s sister using his second home allowance even though a recent Commons rule change states that MPs must not use family members as landlords. Mr Jenkin also faces questions about the amount he spends on rent given that his sister-in-law, part of a wealthy landowning family who now lives in a castle in Scotland, does not have a mortgage on his constituency property.

Mr Jenkin, an MP since 1992, currently represents North Essex.

He is married to Anne Jenkin, a PR consultant, who went out with Richard Curtis, the screenwriter, at university. The fact that Mr Jenkin won her heart is commemorated by the inclusion of jokes at the expense of a character called Bernard in many of Mr Curtis’s television series and films, from Blackadder to Four Weddings and a Funeral. Mr Jenkin and his wife live in Kennington, south London. He nominates as his second home a substantial Essex farmhouse.

The property is owned outright by Mary Fraser, Mrs Jenkin’s older sister, who lives at Moniack Castle near Inverness, which has been in her husband’s family since 1580.

On the other side of a lane from the farmhouse near Chelmsford is a historic country house whose registered owners are Mrs Fraser and Mrs Jenkin, where their mother, the daughter of a viscount, lives. The girls’ younger brother, Lord Rayleigh, owns thousands of acres in the county. Mr Jenkin’s files show that he paid his sister-in-law £49,500 in rent between 2004 and 2008, with the monthly bill rising from £1,000 to £1,250 recently. However since 2006 the Green Book of rules for MPs’ allowances has banned them from entering into business arrangements with relatives over their second homes.

Mr Jenkin’s file shows that he charges taxpayers more than £1,000 a year for cleaning services, together with similar amounts for utilities bills including heating oil and £500 for a security system.

In 2005 he claimed more than £400 for a lawnmower although MPs are supposed to charge only for garden maintenance.

When approached by his local newspaper this week to discuss his expenses, Mr Jenkin did not mention his living arrangements but instead agreed to donate to Combat Stress, an armed forces charity, some of the £780 he claimed from the public purse for a 42in plasma screen television.

He said: “I’m doing this because I feel it’s penance for a tactless claim.” Mr Jenkin said in a statement last night: “We first rented the farmhouse as our constituency home before the 'family member’ rule was introduced. The fees office was aware at the outset of this relationship. They have apologised in writing to me within the past week for failing to alert me that this arrangement no longer conforms to their policy. They have given me explicit permission to continue claiming expenses against the farmhouse until the end of August 2009.

“ The present rental is reasonable and somewhat less than could be obtained on the open market, so in the circumstances, any suggestion that this represents a misuse of public funds is unfounded.”


Name: Bernard Jenkin

Job: Backbench Conservative MP

Salary: £64,766

Total second home claims

2004-05: £20,902

2005-06: £21,518

2006-07: £21,036

2007-08: £23,083