Two SNP MPs are among a number of elected officials found to have charged their Amazon Prime subscriptions to the taxpayer in the last 18 months.
Angela Crawley, who serves as the SNP MP for Lanark and Hamilton East, and Steven Bonnar, SNP MP for Coatbridge, Chryston, and Bellshill, have claimed payments for the service back on expenses.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which handles MPs’ expense claims, has previously stated Prime subscriptions can be within the rules, but “the MP will need to justify that the subscription is primarily used for parliamentary purposes at the time they submit the claim”.
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Mr Bonnar submitted a claim for £7.99, listed as “Amazon Prime”, but he told the Sunday Mirror it was a one-off purchase of stationery, not a subscription charge, and that the value was a coincidence.
Ms Crawley refused to comment when approached by Glasgow Live about multiple Amazon Prime claims. A one-off payment of £18.50 for NOW TV was also claimed back.
The Sunday Mirror reports that Tory leadership hopeful Liz Truss is one of at least seven MPs to charge her Amazon Prime subscription to the taxpayer. Three more Tory MPs - Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, James Gray and Vicky Ford, have also claimed back payments for the subscription service since the start of the Parliamentary session in 2021.
Labour’s Fleur Anderson and Janet Daby were also among those found to be doing so. Most claimed back the charges as a monthly £7.99 subscription fee - but Mr Gray and Ms Truss claimed back the annual fee of £79 as a lump sum.
IPSA resumed publishing MPs’ expenses data this week after a delay of more than a year.
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The body “paused” publication of individual claims in November (2021), following the murder of Sir David Amess at a surgery in his constituency.
Lanark and Hamilton East MP Angela Crawley was contacted for comment.
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