Shadow chancellor investigated over expenses
Shadow chancellor George Osborne investigated over expenses
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Thursday, 02, Jul 2009 03:18
Shadow chancellor George Osborne is being investigated over his expenses, it has been confirmed.
The parliamentary standards commissioner confirmed on Thursday a complaint from the chairman of the Labour party in Mr Osborne's Tatton constituency was being investigated.
It has been alleged Mr Osborne paid for his main home by increasing the mortgage on his second residence.
The shadow chancellor is understood to have bought a Cheshire home nearby his constituency ten months before winning the seat in 2001.
He funded the purchase through increased borrowing on his London home, which he had lived in with his wife since 1998.
But once the election was secured, Mr Osborne is alleged to have made the London home his 'second home' and claimed mortgage interest payments on his expenses.
Two years later, he made the Cheshire farmhouse his second home and has since claimed £100,000 in public money to cover interest payments on the mortgage he then took out on it.
He was then able to reduce the loan on his London home and sell it for £1.45 million.
Mr Osborne has stressed there was no impropriety, and that he had not made any personal gain from the flip.