Now Scargill’s union to probe £1m flat sale

ARTHUR Scargill is being investigated by his former union after he used one of Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policies to buy his £2million council flat for half its value.

The National Union of Miners is examining how its former militant leader was able to exploit right-tobuy laws to snap up his three-bedroom London apartment.

The union has written to the City of London Corporation to ask whether Mr Scargill claimed the flat was his main residence when he applied for the perk. Rules state a tenant is eligible to buy a council home only if it is their ‘only or main home’.

Sources at the development in the Barbican say Mr Scargill is rarely seen at the £2million property and it is usually empty.

The NUM’s intervention comes days after the Mail revealed that the 78-year- old exploited Mrs Thatcher’s policy. Mr Scargill, who lives in a £600,000 three-bedroom home in Yorkshire, was given use of the London flat when he became president of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982.

He tried to buy it under right to buy in 1993 but was turned down because it was not deemed to be his main residence.

It is unclear why the owners, the City of London Corporation, sanctioned the discounted sale in January 2014. But a month beforehand, Mr Scargill’s daughter and son-in-law bought his Yorkshire home, which he still lives in – and sources say this will have helped his application for the London flat.

Chris Kitchen, national secretary of the NUM, said the union still pays about £3,500 a year towards Mr Scargill’s Yorkshire home on the basis that he lived there. The arrangement is due to his role as honorary life president of the union and the latest bill was for a £4,500 security system because he had warned of assassination attempts.

Mr Kitchen is now planning to consult solicitors to examine where Mr Scargill has declared his main residence to be. The NUM also paid up to £36,000 a year in rent and bills for the London flat between 1991 and 2011. When it stopped, Mr Scargill went to the High Court to challenge the decision but a judge ruled against him.

News of his first attempt to buy the flat emerged in 2014, when Mr Scargill said he had planned to transfer ownership to the NUM. According to Land Registry records, he bought the property two days later for £1.05million. Some of the money for the purchase was provided by his daughter Margaret Scargill, a GP, and her husband.

Mr Scargill set up the Socialist Labour Party in 1996 after being booted out of the NUM. One of its policies called for an end to the transfer of public housing stock to the private sector.

Mr Kitchen added: ‘He has two personalities: the public one, of the great trade unionist and socialist who is against the selloff of council properties and then the other, who is the Arthur Scargill who says, “I’ve got to look after myself”.’

The City of London Corporation said it checks all applications to make sure they comply with the terms of the right-tobuy scheme.