Fury at Kemi's £400 a month council tax claim

You pay the bill for Tory leader Badenoch's luxury country pile

- BY NICK SOMMERLAD Investigations Editor and PATRICK HILL

KEMI Badenoch is billing the taxpayer more than £400 a month in council tax for her swanky second home.

The Tory leader has a pad in London and rents a huge six-bedroom farm-house in her Essex constituency.

Her country retreat is so posh it is in the highest council tax band containing the country’s 200,000 most expensive homes.

Mrs Badenoch claims for the full whack. Last year it was nearly £4,000. This year it is more than £400 a month so far. She also uses expenses to pay £2,700 of rent a month.

The total rent bill is over the limit she can claim so we understand her banker husband Hamish covers it.

Under House of Commons rules, MPs with seats outside London can claim for the cost of working in two places. Mrs Badenoch's accommodation claim was the 23rd highest out of 664 MPs last year.