Ministers will ask the Commons authorities to consider changing rules that allowed a Labour whip to claim £900 in expenses to rent a pet-friendly flat in London.
The government will lobby the independent expenses regulator to look at allowance rules after Taiwo Owatemi claimed for a pet surcharge demanded by her landlord to allow her to keep her dog in the property.
The MP for Coventry North West made her claim last summer, and it was accepted by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa). But Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said on Sunday he would not have made such a claim, and criticised the rules that allowed his Labour colleague to do so.
Jarvis told LBC: “I wouldn’t do that; [I] haven’t done that. Therefore, I think it can’t be right that the rules allow any member of parliament to do that.
“That is why the government will be making representations to Ipsa, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, to ask them to look very carefully at the detail of this particular rule.”
He added: “It’s important to say that the MP in question hasn’t done anything wrong in that she’s followed the rules as they are at the moment. But we don’t think that those rules can be right and that’s why the government will flag it with Ipsa.”
Owatemi has been contacted for comment.
The MP, who has a cockapoo called Bella, made her expense claim last August for her rented property in south-east London, where she pays £2,340 a month in rent. Ipsa listed the £900 surcharge as a claim for “pet rent”.
Parliamentary rules allow MPs who represent constituencies outside London to claim for the rent on a property in the capital to allow them to attend late-night votes and do other Commons work during the week.
Owatemi has previously posted about her love of animals, including a post to mark National Pet Day with a photograph of her and Bella together. She wrote: “Today we celebrate the joy our pets bring to our lives.”
Hannah Campbell, a disability rights campaigner, told the Sun on Sunday: “When disability money is being cut, to hear that an MP has received £900 for a dog really is shocking.”
MPs are to vote in May on the government’s plans to cut disability support payments for hundreds of thousands of people over the next four years.
