Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed £249 personalised Apple AirPods on expenses
LABOUR’S deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed a pair of personalised Apple AirPods on expenses, The Sun can reveal.
New stats show the MP charged taxpayers £249 for the top-of-the-range headphones on top of more than £2,000 for other Apple kit at the start of the pandemic.
The claims included a £1,619 iPad Pro, with £99 case, £199 keyboard and £131 digital pencil as well as a £70 office chair.
By April last year, she claimed over £2,100 for equipment.
MPs were allowed to spend an extra £10,000 to kit out home offices for themselves and staff as the Covid crisis took hold.
Ms Rayner — who in 2019 was pictured wearing a set of AirPods — bought a set of Personalised AirPod Pros and billed them for use in her office.
MPs should be asking themselves if it was necessary when millions of Brits may face unemployment
John O’Connell, TaxPayers’ Alliance
Other Bluetooth headphones are available on Amazon for £8.
Another top Labour MP, Barry Gardiner, claimed £131 for an iPad pen.
But their party colleague Rosena Allin-Khan showed them up by securing a donation of laptops, worth £10,000, and handing them to schools.
The 44 computers were distributed to Primary Schools across her south London constituency of Tooting.
John O’Connell, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “No doubt all this spending will be ‘within the rules’.
The Sun says
THOSE who have struggled to work from home will be aghast at how MPs like Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner have cashed in with luxury upgrades on expenses.
A reasonably-priced pair of headphones would have been sufficient.
If she wanted top-of-the-range personalised Apple AirPod Pros, at £249, then why should you pay for them? It’s pure greed.
What was she listening to? Certainly not the howls of cash-strapped taxpayers.
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“But MPs should be asking themselves if it was necessary when millions of Brits may face unemployment.”
Ms Rayner’s spokesman said: “All expenses for the running of Angela’s parliamentary office were submitted in line with the rules.”
Mr Gardiner was asked for a comment.
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