Revealed: More than 100 MPs pocket at least £2.6m per year by renting out hundreds of properties
Just over 100 members of parliament make at least £2.6m per year between them by renting out properties in London and across the UK.
According to new research, based on parliamentary disclosures published in September 2021, 177 MPs own at least 312 residential properties, nearly a third of all MPs. Those are properties they own in addition to the homes they or their close family members live in, Transparency International UK claims.
Nearly a fifth of all MPs, 113 in total, own 261 homes across the UK which generate a ‘significant income’, defined by Transparency International as at least £10,000 or more, per yeart.
107 of these properties are in London and the South East of England.
All properties combined, they have a value of more than £30m, based on a minimum value of around £100,000 each, although the report stressed this estimate “is likely only the top of the iceberg.”
The researchers claim these property-owning MPs’ collective rental income is around £2.6m a year, based on conservative estimates, highlighting that this figure could be much higher.
Finally, the report stressed that if you are an MP, you are three times more likely to own a property than members of the general public: while 27 per cent of all MPs own more than one home, just 9 per cent of the general UK population has more than one property.