Revealed: How the Kinnocks have enjoyed an astonishing £10m ride on the EU gravy train

Source: Daily Mail
By Simon Mcgee
14th June 2009

Neil and Glenys Kinnock received more than £10million in pay, allowances and pension entitlements during their time working at the European Union in Brussels.

The astonishing figure can be revealed after a Mail on Sunday investigation into the couple’s lavish lifestyle funded from the public purse.

Lady Kinnock, who was appointed Europe Minister by Gordon Brown this month, was an MEP for 15 years. Her husband, who failed to win a General Election as Labour leader, was an EU Commissioner for ten years until 2004.

Their generous package of salary and perks included:

* A total of £775,000 in wages for Lady Kinnock and £1.85 million for her husband, adding up to £2,625,000.
* Allowances for Lady Kinnock’s staff and office costs of £2.9million.
* A £64,564 ‘entertainment allowance’ for Lord Kinnock.
* A total of five publicly-funded pensions, worth £4.4million, allowing them to retire on £183,000 a year.
* A housing allowance that allowed them both to claim accommodation costs although, as a married couple, they lived in the same house in the Belgian capital between 1995 and 2004.

Now back at the centre of British politics, Lady Kinnock has been elevated to the House of Lords while her husband played a key role in quelling last weekend’s rebellion against Mr Brown.

The Mail on Sunday questioned a spokeswoman for the Kinnocks in detail about the figures, calculated by the think-tank Open Europe. It campaigns for greater transparency in Brussels.

She disputed only one figure – a ‘transition allowance’ Lord Kinnock received on his departure from Brussels, worth £355,143 at today’s exchange rate. She said the true figure was lower, but refused to reveal it.

The European Parliament does not publish a breakdown of expenses that MEPs have to claim, rather than receive automatically, so Open Europe has estimated Lady Kinnock’s travel costs based on the average for MEPs.

These are in addition to her wages and the allowances she was eligible to receive automatically. The estimates are £1,179,482 for travel between Britain and the Continent over 15 years, and £45,777 for travel outside the EU.

Lady Kinnock is entitled to a transition allowance running into tens of thousands of pounds, designed to keep ex-MEPs going until they find new employment, but her ministerial appointment means she will forgo it.

Glenys Kinnock has been elevated to the House of Lords

However, questions were being asked last night about claims for the Kinnocks’ three-bedroom Brussels home, where they lived together between 1995 and 2004.

They bought it after Lady Kinnock’s election in 1994, and sold it after Lord Kinnock stood down from the Commission in 2004.

A Brussels estate agent said the house would probably have cost about £120,000 in 1994, and would have doubled in value by the time it was sold.

During his ten years in Brussels, Lord Kinnock automatically received residential allowances totalling £276,962.

And his wife has been claiming the controversial daily attendance allowance, designed to cover the cost of accommodation and subsistence when MEPs are in Brussels and Strasbourg for meetings. But she refused to say how many days she claimed for.

Asked if she claimed the attendance allowance while her husband received his residential allowance, a spokeswoman for the Kinnocks said: ‘Glenys Kinnock claimed the per diem attendance allowance to which she was entitled for each parliamentary day attended. European Commissioners’ residential allowance is paid at 15 per cent of a Commissioner’s salary.’

The European Parliament’s secrecy over expenses means it will not disclose how much Lady Kinnock claimed in daily allowances, although Open Europe estimates it to be £500,000. The Mail on Sunday has not included this in the £10million of salary, automatic allowances and pension.

At present MEPs receive €298 (£270) each day they sign a register at the European Parliament. However, it is open to abuse and in 2004 Austrian MEP Hans-Peter Martin filmed MEPs turning up to sign in early in the morning, only to head straight to the airport without doing any work.

Dr Martin, a former investigative journalist, recorded Lady Kinnock leaving the Parliament building within an hour of signing in on 26 occasions during his two-year investigation.

A Kinnock family spokeswoman said: ‘All payments to Glenys Kinnock, including the salary to which she was entitled as an MEP, were exactly the same as made to all UK MEPs. Staff and office expenses were exactly the same as for all other MEPs.’

The couple have profited by £120,000 on their property in Brussels, and they also own a home in North London

On Lord Kinnock’s income and perks, she said: ‘All of these details are a matter of public record.’

Based on Open Europe’s calculations of the pensions due to the Kinnocks for their work in the EU – shown to the couple and not disputed – they will get a combined annual pension of around £183,000, from five separate pensions.

The think-tank said Lady Kinnock can expect £67,835 a year from two pensions as an MEP: one a £19,370 basic pension and the other £48,465 from the European Parliament’s Additional Voluntary Pension Scheme which sees the taxpayer paying £2 for every £1 put into the pot by MEPs.

Her new ministerial pay package will be used to top up contributions to the basic MEP pension. She is also already claiming a teachers’ pension.

Mr Kinnock is receiving one pension as a former MP of 25 years’ service, thought to amount to £32,000 a year.

He has a second pension for his EU job in Brussels, worth more than £80,000.

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at financial consultants Hargreaves Lansdown, calculated that Lady Kinnock’s two MEP pensions and Lord Kinnock’s Commission pension would alone cost an ordinary taxpayer £4.4million to buy in cash.

Three homes Kinnocks: The pair also own a home in South Wales

Mr McPhail said: ‘Wow. Not bad for a failed party leader and his wife. But people will find this scale of indulgence on the part of politicians nauseating, especially at a time when British workers are having their pensions cut.’

The Kinnocks have also built up a valuable property portfolio, with homes in London and Wales.

In 1992, they bought a house in Ealing, West London, for £445,000. They sold it in January 2007 for £1,515,000 and bought a smart three-storey property in Islington, North London, for £815,000. They also own a house in Peterston-super-Ely, a village outside Cardiff, thought to be worth £700,000.

Other members of the Kinnock family have also benefited from the Brussels gravy train. Son Stephen’s first job after Cambridge University was as a research assistant to an MEP.

His Danish wife Helle – tipped as a future prime minister of Denmark – sat as an MEP from 1999 to 2004, while the Kinnocks’ daughter Rachel was her mother’s research assistant at the European Parliament. Rachel now works for Gordon Brown in the political unit at No10, paid by the Labour Party.