Labour MP still lives in council f lat 2 years after saying she didn’t need it
A LABOuR MP is still living in a council flat more than two years after admitting ‘it’s probably not something that I need’.
Apsana Begum attacked the Conservatives just last week for having ‘no solutions’ to the housing crisis.
Yet she has been occupying a taxpayer-funded flat in a deprived London borough where 23,000 households are on the waiting list and desperate families face a three to six-year wait.
Left- winger Ms Begum, 33, whose MP’s salary is £86,584 a year, was seen leaving her £330,000 riverside property funded by the public, typing on her phone.
The same day this month, she tweeted: ‘From the NHS to housing, the Tories offer no solutions to the current crisis.’
Last night Peter Golds, her local Conservative councillor in Tower Hamlets, said: ‘Well, of course there would be a very simple solution – she could lead by example and move out.
‘She says she doesn’t need that flat anyway, so why not give way to a family that genuinely does need it? She is so hypocritical. It is immoral that a person with an MP’s salary, plus expenses, lives in publicly subsidised social housing
which could and should be available to the neediest in society.’
Ms Begum moved into the block beside the Thames in March 2016 when she was a diversity officer earning about £30,000 a year. But in 2019, her salary leapt to around £80,000 when she became Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse.
In 2021, she was found not guilty of making fraudulent housing claims after being accused of using her connections as a council house adviser to jump the queue for the one-bedroom flat.
After being acquitted on all charges, she gave an interview to The Guardian in August that year.
Asked why she still had the flat, she admitted: ‘I am probably in a much better position now than I was when I first contacted the council for support. So it is something that I am thinking about: is it something that I need?
‘And it’s probably not something that I need. It’s something that I should maybe consider or think about moving on from.’ The Guardian’s interviewer suggested that ‘an MP with an annual income nearly three times the average uK salary should not be taking social housing away from others in desperate need’.
Mr Golds said there were 23,000 households on the local waiting list. The Tower Hamlets council website states: ‘There is a large demand for social housing in Tower Hamlets.
‘Most people who join the housing register will never be offered a social housing tenancy. Even if you qualify, you may have to wait a long time.’ A table shows the waiting time for a one-bedroom flat is three to six years.
The income cap for those applying for social housing in the borough is £90,000 a year. There is no suggestion that Ms Begum has broken any rules.
According to official figures on the website of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, she was paid an ‘ uplift’ of £4,310, known as the London Area Living Payment. MPs in the capital are entitled to this on top of their salaries.
It pushes her total income over £90,000, putting further pressure on her to explain her housing situation. Ms Begum has declined to comment.
‘Give way to family that needs it’