🔴ANDY BURNHAM: LUXURY FLAT PARTIALLY FUNDED BY TAXPAYERS How ‘man of the people’ @andyburn’s LUXURY London flat was part-funded by £16,000 of taxpayers’ cash The wannabe PM bought the two-bedroom flat in Kennington, South London, in 2005, when he was an MP. Mr Burnham snapped up the property for £215,000 with his wife after Dolphin Square – a notorious luxury apartment complex – was sold that year, reports the Daily Mail. The residents were given a pay-off to rip up their tenancy and move out with many MPs handing the cash over to Parliamentary authorities. But, according to the outlet, the self-styled “King of the North” negotiated a deal to add a windfall of nearly £18,200 to a second home allowance. In turn, this allowed him and his wife to both purchase and renovate the South London flat using taxpayer cash. Mr Burnham is said to have submitted an expenses claim totalling £16,644 to cover the purchase of the property, stamp duty and legal fees in addition to a brand new kitchen. As a result, he was able to avoid paying thousands in capital gain tax. He said at the time that it was “complete nonsense” to suggest he avoided the tax and denied making “any personal profit on this transaction”. He came under pressure the following year to repay the windfall after it was found that other MPs living in Dolphin Square had pocketed theirs. But he was ultimately not investigated by the Commissioner for Standards with a spokesperson saying it had actually “saved thousands of pounds for the taxpayer” and there was “no personal gain to Mr Burnham”. Burnham had also reportedly tried to claim for the mortgage interest on the flat as well as on his constituency address in the north-west. While he is also said to have had submitted an ineligible claim for mortgage capital rather than interest. The rules were changed in the wake of the expenses scandal of 2009 after an outcry over politicians splurging taxpayers’ cash to profit from their second homes. MPs were banned from using the expenses system to pay for their mortgage, and only allowed to use it to rent homes in London instead. Mr Burnham decided to keep his London flat and rent it out while charging taxpayers a reported £17,000 a year to rent a different flat for himself nearby. He was heavily criticised when the arrangement first surfaced back in 2012, when he was shadow health secretary under Ed Miliband. According to market experts, his second home has doubled in value since he bought it 20 years ago. His London flat is an ex council flat that would have been sold under the Right To Buy scheme at some point. The London housing market has got so expensive it is almost impossible for young people to get on the property ladder. Mr Burnham has previously hit out at people profiteering from the house price boom while others cannot afford their first home. He has also called for “lower rents” and even backed a rent freeze in a letter to then Housing Secretary Michael Gove in 2023. thesun.co.uk/news/39605254/a… express.co.uk/news/politics/…