HOW MUCH EVERY MEMBER OF THE SENEDD CLAIMED – FOR FULL DETAILS OF ALL MSs, SEE WALESONLINE.CO.UK
■ 1. Rhun ap Iorwerth, Ynys Mon, Plaid Cymru – £175,071.08
His most expensive claim in his first year was second home council tax in 2016 – £1,831.76. The amount for that rose each year to £2,221.97 by the final year of the term.
Office rent and second home rental both also ran to hundreds of pounds each month. He also made several claims for air travel between his Anglesey constituency and Cardiff at a cost of £144.98 each return trip.
In 2016, he also claimed £744 for ergonomic office chairs and £299.99 for a cordless Dyson vacuum cleaner.
In 2017, Mr ap Iorwerth bought a CD player and claimed £30 for a caravan plot at the Royal Welsh Show.
The following financial year there was a £122 claim for a feather banner flag.
In 2019, he spent £78 on 250 packs of four mini coloured pencils.
Mr ap Iorwerth said the bulk of his costs were his accommodation in Cardiff and travel to the Senedd as well as the cost of running a constituency office. He explained he also bought stationary locally rather than using the central procurement team.
2. Russell George, Montgomeryshire, Conservatives – £174,115.62
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Mr George’s second home council tax is the biggest cost on his expenses documents. In his first year it was £1,464.
He claimed £299 in 2016 for stamps and £165 to replace his doorstep and carpet. In 2016, he claimed £30 for sponsoring a bauble at Girlguiding Cymru and £37.50 for pitchside advertising at Guildsfild FC.
There was a further £250 for stamps in 2017. In 2019-20, there were three electricity bills for £905, £981 and £1,068. He spent £558 on surveys about votes for prisoners, £27 for Royal Welsh Show tickets and £11.98 on hand soap, bleach and cleaning materials.
3. Darren Millar, Clwyd West, Conservatives – £173,974.25
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The majority of the claims by Mr Millar, who was first elected in 2007, are for office rent, second home service charges, and council tax and rent. He also spent £975 on a Galant oak filing cabinet, £525 on a corner desk, £300 on a cabinet with sliding drawers, £240 on a Galant oak drawer unit, £240 on a conference table, £175 on a corner desk, £140 with a cabinet with doors.
There was also a claim for eight conference chairs costing £720.
There was also a claim for £465 for a replacement bathtub in 2016-17 as well as a £30 tee sponsorship at Abergele Golf Club. Mr Millar also claimed £7.72 for the internet to check his emails while abroad, £3.35 on tissues for his constituency office and £4 on parcel tape.
In 2017-18, there was a £596 labelled “build office furniture” and another drawer unit, this time £130 from Ikea. The following year, he purchased a £300 bookcase and claimed £13.70 on disinfectant air freshener.
In 2018-19 the single biggest claim was for £2,880 for an advertising board.
4. Janet Finch-Saunders, Aberconwy, Conservatives – £171,138.90
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The Aberconwy MS’ most expensive claim in the first year was £2,125 three times for office rent. There were payments of £850 for second home rent.
Given the location of her constituency, it’s no surprise car mileage features repeatedly as does rail travel.
There was also a £96 boiler service and a water cooler for £22.36 in August 2016. She bought four tickets to Eglwysbach Show, £1.29 on washing-up liquid and her smallest claim of the first year was for 50p for 10 passenger miles in a vehicle.
In 2017-18 she spent 182 on waste collection bags, £100.22 on a lectern, £42 on “firefighting appliances” and the smallest was again 50p on office equipment.
The following year there was a claim for £660 for recruitment advertising, and two claims of £196 for recycling collections. There was a vacuum cleaner of £69.99.
Two laptops cost £2,142 in March 2020 and there was £335 spent on newsletters, £150 on 7,500 A5 flyers, Eisteddfod tickets costing £40, £2 on a scourer and washing-up liquid.
In the final year of the term £898 was spent on winter newsletters and a further £651 on delivering those and a £106.80 charge to collect them. There was another vacuum cleaner of £107.98.
■ 5. Dafydd Elis-Thomas – £151,775.67
Mr Elis-Thomas, who is no longer a MS, claimed £749.70 in mileage in 2016-17, his biggest claim. There were then monthly second home claims of £735. He claimed £535.50 and £382.50 on family travel. The first amount was for a month between May and June 2016 and second for the period between June 23 and July 17, 2016.
Lord Elis-Thomas also claimed £108.98 for a car sat-nav.
There was also a claim for £460 installing new radiators in his office.
He claimed £619 for an iPad Pro and £50 for an iPad case, and further amounts for family travel.
Lord Elis-Thomas also claimed £35 for a dictionary and £4 for a dustpan and brush, picture-hanging kit and batteries in June 2017. The following year there was a £730 charge to remove an “old sign and replace with new” and £50.71 to change office lightbulbs.
In April 2020, he claimed £885 for a laptop for a member of Assembly support staff, his largest claim of the year.
6. Sian Gwenllian, Arfon, Plaid Cymru – £151,003.54
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The Arfon MS’ office rent was top of the list in the first year, costing £1,650 for three months. There was a £540 charge for report translation and a £604 bill for 10 chairs.
Air travel features regularly as do hotel stays. A whiteboard cleaning kit cost £12.84.
Travel, rent and parking continue to feature most frequently – in 2018-19 her UK travel bill was £4,318.
Second home council tax cost £1,794 in 2019-20, rising to £1,880 the following year.
Ms Gwenllian said that her constituency is a 360-mile round trip from Cardiff and that she rents a flat within walking distance of the Senedd for the days she is in south Wales. Ms Gwenllian said hotel rooms for the nights required would incur “similar costs”.
She has two office spaces in the constituency, one in the east and one in the west due to poor bus connections and no train. Her bill for office items is to conform with health and safety rules, she explained.
7. Llyr Gruffydd, North Wales, Plaid Cymru – £138,726.40
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Mr Gruffydd’s council tax and office rent are the most expensive claims in 2016-17 and second home rental cost £735 a month. He bought a £542 gazebo for constituency business in 2017 and return flights to Geneva to visit the Cern centre with Universities Wales for £100 in total. He had a number of newspaper and media subscriptions.
The following year he spent £399 on a paper-folding machine and £230 for a recurring three-monthly lease of a photocopier. Mileage and travel both feature repeatedly.
In 2019-20 his biggest expense was
newspaper adverts. There were also new carpets for £267, tickets to a number of agricultural shows and newspaper subscriptions.
8. Ken Skates, Clwyd South, Labour – £135,726.65
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The Labour cabinet member’s highest expenditures in the first year of the term second home council tax, rent and second home rental.
As a North Wales MS, there are regular mileage bills of £700 (June 2016), £535 (October 2016), £429 for 955 miles between September 16 and September 30, 2016.
Phone batteries of £9.99 and a phone signal booster of £69 are also on the 2016 list.
A sign for Cefn Druid cost £156 in 2017-18 and a clip-on microphone cost £13.94.
He claimed £99 for a replacement Apple XS Max in 2018. In 2020, he spent £652 on letters.
9. Joyce Watson, Mid and West Wales, Labour – £135,405.55
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The bulk of Ms Watson’s claims are for council tax, office rental costs and second home costs including mortgage interest and later rent.
She also paid £2,124 in the summer for two new laptops.
Office rental costs have increased by 50% from £4,073 in 2017 to £6,461 in 2020.
In total, she’s claimed £56,073 for her second home costs, including monthly mortgage interest payments of between £660 and £716 up to February 2018. She then sold her second home and started renting, claiming monthly rental costs of £825.
In May 2016, she bought a mini vac cleaner, batteries and a cafetiere for the office for the grand total of £17.48.
10. Hannah Blythyn, Delyn, Labour – £131,296.60
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Ms Blythyn’s constituency office is 162 miles from Cardiff Bay.
The most expensive claim in 2016-17 was £1,076 for 22,500 copies of a survey. Office rent cost £1,040 for October and November. There was also a bill of £735 for plastering and redecoration of that office, £660 for office maintenance and flooring installation, and an additional £635 was spent on exterior paintwork.
There was £549 on one camera and £169 on another, as well as a £199 transcription bill.
Second home costs also feature, with a monthly £1,000 or £1,030 charge for rent in 2018-19 and second home council tax of £1,503. Light-fitting cost £174.
In 2019-20 there was a £3,160 bill for envelopes – the top item on that year’s claims. Tea towels costing £3.50 were claimed in October 2019, bin bags in March 2020 for £1.49 and Flash cleaning liquid costing 99p in
December 2019.
In 2020-21 there was a £173 bill for flip charts and an annual fee for intruder alarm maintenance and monitoring.
11. Julie James, Swansea West, Labour – £130,949.48
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The climate change minister’s most expensive overall claim was a colour photocopier totalling £3,060 in the first year.
Over the five-year period, second home rent came near the top of her most expensive claims, starting at £800 per month in 2016-17 then gradually increasing to £870 per month by 2020-21.
Her second home council tax reached £1,610.60 in 2017-18 and was £1,794.94 in 2019-20.
In January 2018 Ms James spent £144.95 on a portable speaker system. She also spent over £92 on paper towels in November 2018 and £48.99 on a coffee machine in January 2019.
12. Neil Hamilton, Mid and West Wales, Ukip – £129,354.46
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Mr Hamilton, who is no longer a MS, lives in Wiltshire and has spent £61,031 on travel and travel-related expenses including hotel costs, meals and mileage in the past four years. He’s spent £840 on bridge tolls alone, even though the Severn Bridge charges were abolished at the end of December 2018.
His office rental costs are his largest single expenditures, with £4,000 his biggest claim in the four-year term. He’s submitted claims for offices in both Llanelli and Whitland too.
In June 2019 he spent £39.99 on a kettle for the Llanelli office and he’s also claimed for his annual subscriptions to The Telegraph, The Week, The Spectator, The Times, and The Farmers Weekly.
In response, Mr Hamilton said: “I stood on a platform to Scrap the Senedd, which cost the taxpayer circa £300m for the five-year period, of which Members’ office and related costs are only a small part.”
13. Elin Jones, Ceredigion, Plaid Cymru – £125,621.85
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Ms Jones spent £4,600 on her annual office rent in 2016-17 and £3,112 on sending her annual report via Royal Mail; printing of that cost £1,722. She bought a standing desk in 2017 and routinely claims car mileage.
Two wall clocks and a coat stand cost £56.35 in the first year of the term.
Office furniture cost £692 in April 2017. Simultaneous translation services were paid for at meetings – one cost £88 in June 2017.
Postage of the 2018-19 annual report via Whistl cost £2,833, her second-highest cost of that year. In the final year of the term, second home rental was £770 a month. There was also a £345 charge for an engineer to set up home working.
■ 14. Angela Burns, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Conservative – £124,662.65
Ms Burns did not seek re-election in 2021. Second home rental and office rent were the highest amounts claimed each year of the term, except in 2021 when the top claims were two laptops for £1,062, one bill dated June 3 and the other on June 16.
In 2016 she claimed £1,000 for an office chair – the joint-highest claim that year along with office rent.
She also claimed an additional £440 for an office chair in the same month. Mrs Burns also claimed £144.98 for office removal costs.
In 2019, she claimed £1 for AAA batteries and £4.99 for batteries and a clock.
In 2020, charges included two ink cartridges costing £125.93 total. Zoom charges and Tesco Mobile charges both also feature. She also spent £300 on a Welsh-language website.
15. Mark Isherwood, North Wales, Conservatives – £123,685.62
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Mr Isherwood’s highest claims were council tax and second home rent. He also spent £531 on a desktop computer and £412 on a laptop and £166 on a Dell monitor. Another laptop was bought in the same month, September 2016, for £108.
There are a number of charges for rail travel and car mileage as well as taxis and parking across the term of the Senedd.
Mr Isherwood claimed for his senior railcard in February 2019 and regular taxi journeys in 2018-19. In 2018-19 his UK travel bill was £4,641.
In 2019-20 there were a hotel, a meal and a ticket – all linked to the Royal Welsh Show.
In 2020-21 there was a purchase of a reception chair (£238), workstation (£220), pedestal (£189), tub chair (£118), coffee table (£94) and noticeboard of £24.57.
Mr Isherwood said regional Members will by definition have to travel further than constituency MSs and added that Welsh Government ministers’ travel expenses can appear to be lower as they receive government drivers. He added that furniture purchases in 2020-21 were when he was required to move offices and the first since he had been elected in 2003.
16. Lesley Griffiths, Wrexham, Labour – £122,400.16
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The Wrexham MS’ biggest expense in the first year of this term was almost £4,000 on office rent for the year. Office rent in 2019-20 cost £7,125 for the financial year and the same in the following year.
In the first year she also claimed £884 to supply and fit new carpets. There are a number of media subscriptions and mileage bills, given the distance between her office and Cardiff Bay.
Second home costs feature in the 2017-18 bill which includes £725 removal costs.
There is a £692 charge for a dictaphone in 2017-18.
■ 17. Lee Waters, Llanelli, Labour – £118,303.55
Mr Waters’ highest claim was a laptop and docking station in 2017-18 totalling £1,150.80. However in other years his office rent came up top, costing around £1062.50 for a two month period.
In 2016-17, he claimed £949 for an iMac, £612 for furniture and an additional £522.30 for three red armchairs.
He also claimed four weekly office cleans in March and February for £160 each month.
In 2017-18 he claimed around £1,000 a month for a second home, which reduced to £895 the following year. In 2017-18 he also claimed £87.96 for magnetic whiteboard labels and £118.94 for an office fridge.
Two claims totalling £230.40 each were made for photocopiers in 2018-19 as well as a £114 claim for recycling bags. In November 2020 he claimed £632.18 for second-class windowed envelopes and the same price again for envelopes without windows.
18. Paul Davies, Preseli Pembrokeshire, Conservatives – £114,404.82
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Mr Davies’ single biggest expenditures were his second home council tax, which has increased from £1,549 per year in 2016 to £1,794 in 2019.
In 2016-17, his second-biggest claim was £1,344 on his website.
Throughout his term, he’s also claimed £700 every month to cover his second home rental costs and a further £285 for office rent.
In 2017-18 he spent £241.90 on a stand at the Pembrokeshire County Agricultural Show.
In February 2019, Mr Davies bought a mini-fridge for £42.99 and a microwave the following year for £89.
■ 19. Vikki Howells, Cynon Valley, Labour – £113,377.60
In 2016, when she was first elected, she claimed £740 for new office blinds, £726 for a new sofa set, £655 in carpets, £650 to paint the ground floor of her offices and the same for the first floor.
A TV for the office window cost £504. There was another sofa set of £282.
Her mileage bill is also in the top 10 claims of the first year and there are claims for Facebook adverts “promoting Vikki Howells AM”.
In 2017-18 a locksmith was paid £635 to fit a new office door and locks. There was also a £345 claim for office furniture.
Office rent remained her highest claim each year.
Ms Howells claimed £39.94 in 2016 for travel chargers and cables for an iPhone. In 2019, she claimed £189 for a video doorbell entry system for her office and £3.49 for Flash wipes.
There was a £2,520 bill for office shutter replacement in 2020 and £500 to paint the office exterior. She claimed £2 in postage after collecting a letter at the sorting office.
■ 20. Ann Jones, Vale of Clwyd, Labour – £113,227.25
The former MS claimed £113,227.25 in the five years of the 2016-21 term.
In 2016-17 she had monthly bills for July and August for window cleaning costing £168 and a £546 bill for the same service between March and June. A move of constituency office incurred costs of £144 for a photocopier and £144 to change signs. Skip hire cost £213.
She had second home service charge/ ground rent for £225.62 for a three-monthly period.
Office rent was the highest cost in 2017-18 with a £2,597 bill for July to September.
She received £498 for a Posturite chair after a health referral. There was also £54 charges for intruder alarm activation call outs.
Mileage and rail travel both feature heavily as well as a number of taxi journeys.
■ 21. Jeremy Miles, Neath, Labour – £112,288.96
■ 22. Adam Price, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr – £112,108.15
■ 23. Michelle Brown, North Wales, Independent – £110,066.99
■ 24. Dai Lloyd, South Wales West, Plaid Cymru – £105,048.27
■ 25. Dawn Bowden, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, Labour – £103,804.80
■ 26. Bethan Sayed, South Wales West, Plaid Cymru – £ 101,677.47
■ 27. Mick Antoniw, Pontypridd, Labour – £101,553.80
■ 28. Nick Ramsay, Independent, Monmouth – £99,890.60
■ 29. David Rees, Labour, Aberavon – £96,913.21
■ 30. Andrew RT Davies, South Wales Central, Conservative – £93,369.45
■ 31. Neil McEvoy, South Wales Central, Propel – £92,120.65
■ 32. Mike Hedges, Swansea East, Labour – £87,769.55
■ 33. Caroline Jones, South Wales West, Independent – £88,204.74
■ 34. Suzy Davies, South Wales West, Conservatives – £88,182.85
■ 35. Jack Sargeant, Alyn and Deeside, Labour – £85,664.36
■ 36. Carwyn Jones, Bridgend, Labour – £86,347.09
■ 37. Hefin David, Caerphilly, Labour – £86,296.70
■ 38. Eluned Morgan, Mid and West Wales, Labour – £85,007.93
■ 39. Rebecca Evans, Gower, Labour – £79,464.78
■ 40. David Rowlands, South Wales East, Independent – £80,261.96
■ 41. Mandy Jones, North Wales, Independent – £77,884.07
■ 42. Jenny Rathbone, Cardiff Central, Labour – £74,160.30
■ 43. Kirsty Williams, Brecon and Radnorshire, Liberal Democrats – £76,550.07
■ 44. Leanne Wood, Rhondda, Plaid Cymru – £75,148.50
■ 45. Huw Irranca-Davies, Ogmore, Labour – £74,978.21
■ 46. John Griffiths, Newport East, Labour – £63,936.66
■ 47. Julie Morgan, Cardiff North, Labour – £63,574.70
■ 48. Rhianon Passmore, Islwyn, Labour – £62,149.66
■ 49. Jane Hutt, Vale of Glamorgan, Labour – £61,853.46
■ 50. Mark Drakeford, Cardiff West, Labour – £60,740.22
■ 51. Alun Davies, Blaenau Gwent, Labour – £55,664.79
■ 52. Lynne Neagle, Torfaen, Labour – £53,939.81
■ 53. Mark Reckless, South Wales East, Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party – £46,744.46
■ 54. David Melding, South Wales Central, Conservatives – £43,011.86
■ 55. Jayne Bryant, Newport West, Labour – £41,979.39
■ 56. Vaughan Gething, Cardiff South and Penarth, Labour – £38,683.88
■ 57. Delyth Jewell, South Wales East, Plaid Cymru – £28,715.20
■ 58. Helen Mary Jones, Mid and West Wales, Plaid Cymru – £27,722.97
■ 59. Gareth Bennett, South Wales Central, Independent – £22,313.55
■ 60. Laura Jones, South Wales East, Conservatives – £8,362.88