Mohammad Sarwar, the MP for Glasgow Central, who has an estimated fortune of £16 million, has claimed close to the maximum under his second homes allowance since 2004.
He claimed almost £2,000 every month for the interest on his mortgage on a £600,000 apartment in an exclusive block in Vauxhall, south London, just over the river from the Houses of Parliament.
Mr Sarwar, the chairman of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, also claimed more than £3,000 for ground rent and service charges every year as well as around £1,500 for council tax and hundreds of pounds for home phone bills that included calls to Pakistan.
Mr Sarwar claimed a total of £174,882 in expenses last year but turned up for only 55 per cent of votes, spoke in only nine debates and asked 55 parliamentary questions.
Since 2004 he has claimed a total of £86,497 in second homes allowance (Additional Costs Allowance) and a total of £638,640 in other expenses, including office and staff costs.
In June 2006 the Parliamentary Fees Office wrote to Mr Sarwar to ask for repayment of £580.39 after an audit of his claims discovered that he had submitted some claims twice – and therefore had been reimbursed twice.
His mortgage is paid from a UK branch of the Swiss-based Habib Bank AG Zurich.
He is no stranger to controversy. Soon after his election in 1997 he was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party over allegations of bribing political opponents, and stood trial for fraud. He was acquitted.
Mr Sarwar was unavailable for comment yesterday. A worker in his office said he was opening a charity hospital in Pakistan. "Mr Sarwar does call Pakistan a lot on behalf of his constituents as you would expect," she said. "He could make those calls for free from the House of Commons. He does not make any claims for food and he spends thousands of pounds of his own money on the constituency office which is open from nine to five every day. He hasn't claimed office rent and doesn't claim travel within his constituency."
She added that he had made several visits to Pakistan at his own expense as part of his efforts to bring to justice the killers of teenager Kriss Donald who was murdered in a racially-motivated attack in Glasgow in 2004.
Mohammad Sarwar
Job: Labour MP for Glasgow Central
Salary: £64,766
Total second home claims
2004-05: £20,822
2005-06: £20,820
2006-07: £22,110
2007-08: £22,745
Total expenses
2007-08: £174,882
Rate of attendance at votes: 55 per cent
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