I have always been very careful with my official expenses in recognition that it is not my money, but the money of every taxpayer in the UK.
For example, I have never once, in my capacity as a Member of Parliament, claimed expenses for any Travel costs whatsoever.
I travel back and forth from Northampton to London frequently but I have never claimed for a train ticket, a single litre of petrol, or a single taxi journey in the seven years I have been an MP. I take the view that most people have to pay for their own travel to and from work and I should do the same. All my travel costs are paid for by me through my own salary.
I have also saved the taxpayer many thousands of pounds due to underspending my budget.
Some examples of this include:
- MPs are permitted to claim up to £23,400 per year for ‘Office Costs’ but in the 2015-2016 financial year (the latest year available) I only spent £5,343.40 meaning that I underspent my Office budget by over £18,000 for last year alone.
- MPs were previously allowed to claim £15 a day for food and drink at the Houses of Parliament between 2010 and 2015 when the House of Commons sat past 7.30pm, which it regularly did and still does. However since I was first elected in 2010, I never claimed anything at all in food and drink costs. (Since 2015 the rules were changed to stop this allowance.)
- MPs are permitted to claim up to £140,000 per annum for their staff salaries. For the 2015-2016 financial year (the latest year available) I spent £120,698.04 – meaning that I underspent my Staff budget for that year by over £19,000.
I am a firm believer in keeping the cost of politics as low as possible for the taxpayer and my actions have proved this. Overall I have calculated that I have saved the taxpayer £250,000 by under-spending my budgets since 2010.
You can see a record of my expenses between 2010 and 2015 on my website: http://www.michaelellis.co.uk/, and since then by reference to the IPSA website here: http://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-costs/your-mp/michael-ellis/.
As well as saving the taxpayer money I have always taken my duty to vote in Parliament very seriously.
Since the last General Election in 2015 there have been hundreds of votes in the House of Commons and I have voted in 92.93% of all votes. This has been categorised as being “well above average amongst all MPs”.
This work in Parliament is on top of the work that I do for my constituents: in 2014-2015 I was ranked 1st out of all 650 MPs for responding to constituents’ emails and have maintained a very high ranking since then.