Kemi Badenoch bills taxpayers for nearly £3,000 worth of electricity bills
The Tory leader claimed £1,800 worth of bills in February 2024, followed by another £1,000 a month later - both for her second home which is only just far enough away from London to claim expenses
Kemi Badenoch claimed nearly £3,000 of taxpayers cash to pay the electricity bills at her second home - months after her government scrapped assistance for struggling households.
The last government's Energy Bills Assistance scheme came to an end in June 2023.
But the following February, Ms Badenoch billed taxpayers for more than £1,800 worth of electricity bills.
And in March, she submitted a second claim for another £1,000.
Government records suggest it's the first time Ms Badenoch has claimed for energy bills since moving into her Kent country pile, which she shares with her banker husband Hamish.
The couple share a huge grade II listed farmhouse with six bedrooms - with rent paid for on expenses.
Her banker husband subsidises the rent - as it is over the limit for the amount she can claim - but the Mirror revealed earlier this year that Mrs Badenoch has landed the taxpayer with the full council tax bill.
The Mirror revealed earlier this year that Ms Badenoch claims the maximum level of Council Tax for her property - nearly £4,000 last year - despite it being just a stone's throw away from London.
Ms Badenoch made the 23rd highest accommodation claim out of 664 MPs last year and yet her Essex constituency borders the 'London area' where MPs are not allowed to claim any second home expenses at all.
The claims are within the rules but raises awkward questions for the outspoken right-winger, who says she wants a "smaller state" and champions lower Government spending.
At the time the electricity bill claims were submitted, Ms Badenoch was business and trade secretary, earning almost £160,000 a year - more than four times the national average salary.
Ms Badenoch's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms Badenoch came under fire this week after calling for measures to drive down energy bills to be scrapped.
The Tory leader demanded an end to the windfall tax on oil and gas firms and for a ban on new licences in the North Sea to be lifted.
She was accused of being "on the side of oil and gas giants rather than working Scots".
The energy levy was brought in when Rishi Sunak was in power when profits exploded following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But in a speech to Scottish Tories Ms Badenoch claimed the windfall is "long gone" and claimed Labour is "killing this industry".
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