Saturday 24 May 2008

Pigs at the trough....once again

The health minister Ann Keen is this weekend revealed to have insured her 70-year-old husband’s life for £430,000 – and to have claimed the premiums on parliamentary expenses.

Keen took out a joint HSBC “first death” policy with her husband Alan, also a Labour MP, which meant if one of them died the other would get the payout.

The £867 monthly premiums were submitted as part of their parliamentary expenses. The couple are already entitled to generous payouts if one of them dies under the Commons pension scheme.

Details of the policy have been released after a three-year freedom of information battle by The Sunday Times. Michael Martin, the Speaker, was forced to publish the expenses of 14 MPs after spending more than £200,000 of taxpayers’ money trying to block their release.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

and we're now so used to the thieves in Westminster that this passes almost without comment.