Call for Cotswold MP to repay taxpayers' money

4.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 17th May 2009

Liberal Democrats in the Cotswolds are today calling on Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP to repay money he used to make profits on selling his home.

The MP 'flipped' his second home designation from London to his Cotswolds home and claimed £66,800 over three years from 2005-2008 - the maximum amount allowed for a second home. Two years after buying the Gloucestershire property he sold it and made a profit of £208,000 and moved to his present £2.7 million home in Daglingworth.

Now, Cllr Paul Hodgkinson (CDC, Churn Valley) is calling on the MP to repay the money he has gained by using the discredited expenses system; "It's a real shame that he's seen fit to put self interest before the interests of all of us who are his constituents. People are angry that this is happening and we need a complete change at national and local level. I trust our MP will repay the money he's made in its entirety as other MP's have felt obliged to do."

Cllr Hodgkinson believes the very least Mr Clifton-Brown should do is pay capital gains tax on the proceeds of the sale of his 'second home' locally, "He's taken full advantage of a flawed system. Resisting temptation is the true measure of character. Nick Clegg has proposed that MP's should return to the taxpayer that proportion of profit made on second homes which have been subsidised by the taxpayer. The only long term solution to this problem is to take MP's out of the property investment game altogether."