MP claims £367,659 in expenses, insists it's "terribly efficient" compared to last year

The People's Chamber · Commentary

Stuart Andrew, MP for Daventry, has claimed £367,659 in business costs for 2024-25 — a figure which has earned him the unofficial gold medal in this year's Big Spenders league. A spokesperson is understood to have suggested, off the record and not for direct quotation, that this represents "terribly efficient" expense management compared to previous years, on the grounds that any number is more efficient than the same number plus inflation. It is, as ever, all entirely above board. IPSA approves each claim with the patient resignation of a parent ticking off a bedtime story. The system works precisely as designed — which is, perhaps, the gentlest way of putting it. Daventry sits 78 miles from Westminster, give or take a roundabout. Each mile, by some discreet alchemy of accommodation, transport, and constituency staffing, has cost the British public £4,713. At that rate, an MP for somewhere truly remote — say, Lerwick — would represent a fiscal event roughly equivalent to a small public inquiry.