Anger as Clegg gets £115k expenses meant for ex PMs

NICK Clegg has been awarded expenses worth up to £115,000 a year in a perk normally reserved for ex-prime ministers.

The former deputy prime minister claimed £101,911 from the special grant in 2015/16, it has emerged.

Previously, only former premiers have been allocated the money, which helps meet the costs of their public duties, such as travel and staffing expenses.

Mr Clegg has spent much of his time since quitting as Liberal Democrat leader on the lucrative speaking circuit. He earned £22,000 for an event for PepsiCo last August and £30,000 from Frederik Paulsen, the billionaire Lib Dem donor. Only last week did he return to frontline politics, as his party’s EU spokesman.

It is the first time that a former deputy prime minister has been allowed access to the fund, known as the Public Duty Costs Allowance (PDCA). John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown all claimed close to the full amount available last year – and David Cameron will be able to do so next year.

But critics said last night that Mr Clegg would face charges of hypocrisy unless he handed the money back because he had been part of a government that pledged to bring down the cost of politics.

The latest Cabinet Office annual report reveals the grant was extended to Mr Clegg after he left office in May 2015. While former PMs receive an allowance for life, his is for a maximum of five years and will be reviewed every year. Both the Cabinet Office and the Lib Dems declined to provide details of how the money was spent.

Mr Clegg has since taken a back seat in Parliament since the five years of coalition ended last year in the near wipe-out of his party in the Commons. It was revealed this year that he had one of the worst voting records among MPs since the general election. Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the Tax-Payers’ Alliance, said: ‘The Cabinet Office should reveal who sanctioned giving Nick Clegg this allowance so that taxpayers can hold them to account.

‘Given that the government of which he was part was set on reducing the cost of politics, he will struggle to avoid the accusation of hypocrisy. It is totally unjustifiable.’ A spokesman for Mr Clegg said: ‘Nick Clegg, as former deputy prime minister in the first coalition government in recent times, receives the PDCA in the same way as former prime ministers of singleparty governments for exactly the same reasons. His earnings outside Parliament are declared publicly and are significantly lower than those of former PMs.’

The Cabinet Office said: ‘It was agreed Mr Clegg should be paid [the allowance] for a short period after leaving office to help with some of the necessary costs and secretariat support associated with being in such a senior position.’

It has declined to provide details of the expenses claimed by exprime ministers, arguing that it would be a breach of confidence and an invasion of privacy.

In March, a judge ruled that the government should release such details under Freedom of Information laws. The Cabinet Office is appealing against the judgment.