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Labour MP Chris Bryant made £649,500 in gross profit selling two London flats the taxpayer helped pay the mortgage interest on.

When the rules changed preventing MPs from claiming mortgage interest, the Rhondda MP rented out the penthouse he owns for around £3,000 a month and claimed £84,350 from the taxpayer to rent a different property to live in himself.

Campaigners have demanded MPs who have made profits from selling homes they've benefited from taxpayer support to run pay back the cash.

Mr Bryant insisted that he had not profited from the taxpayer as he had owned a home in London before he became an MP and had paid the deposit on it himself.

Mr Bryant's windfall came to light as part of a Mirror investigation into the profits MPs have made from their taxpayer-subsidised homes a decade on from the Westminster expenses scandal.

These are the properties on which politicians reclaimed thousands of pounds in mortgage interest payments at public expense under the discredited old expenses system.

Under parliamentary rules they are entitled to keep the money. But with trust in politicians still low after the expenses scandal and the ongoing Brexit shambles, critics told the Mirror that if they want to regain trust they should hand the money to the Treasury.

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Former chairman of the Committee of Standards in Public Life, Sir Alistair Graham, said: “People should not be making a profit. It was there to help them meet their public ­responsibilities. You should not be profiting out of special taxpayer funds.

“You should repay any gain you made over that period.

"It would need to be carefully ­calculated but Independent ­Parliamentary Standards Authority has done this before and they can do it again.

"I don’t think anything will restore trust, it’s at such a low ebb, but it’s the right thing to do.”

Former MP, journalist and ethics campaigner Martin Bell added: “It’s an open and shut case, of course they should pay it back.

“I have always felt MPs should set an example. But there was a feeling then that MPs were charging the maximum they could. There was a fill your boots attitude.”

(Image: Phil Harris / Daily Mirror)





Mr Bryant was elected MP for Rhondda in 2001.



After claiming on a home in his constituency, Mr Bryant flipped his second home allowance in 2005 to a property in London which he had owned since 2002.



After claiming £3,600 in mortgage interest payments over three months, Mr Bryant sold that flat for £477,000, making a £77,000 profit.



He bought a new penthouse apartment in London's posh Bloomsbury area for £495,000 in 2005, claiming £6,400 in stamp duty, legal fees and mortgage fees for the purchase, along with up to £1,000 in mortgage interest payments.



In all, Mr Bryant claimed £42,533 in mortgage interest payments from 2004 to 2009.



After the rules changed preventing MPs from claiming mortgage interest, Mr Bryant moved out of his penthouse and began to rent out the property for around £3,000 a month.



He moved into a new home and between July 2010 and January 2015, claimed £84,350 from the taxpayer for renting the property.

He is one of 16 MPs the Mirror found who claimed cash to rent properties in London while letting out their own. Others included Tory Trade Secretary and Brexiter Liam Fox.

One housing charity told the Mirror: “It’s scandalous. End this gravy train.”



In 2018, Mr Bryant sold the penthouse for £1.1m, £572,500 more than he paid for it.

In total, he made £649,500 in gross profit before costs such as tax, estate agent fees and legal fees from selling the two flats. This was after receiving around £166,000 in support from the taxpayer to enable him to maintain a home in London between 2004 and 2015.

"This was independently audited ten years ago and judged to be fully in order," Mr Bryant said.

"Of course I have met all my tax and duty liabilities.

"I bought a flat with my own money and a mortgage in London long before I was elected.

"It was roughly the same value after house inflation as my flat today - and it is wrong to say that I have profited from the taxpayer.

"I do not claim for rent, mortgage interest or hotels and I meet 90 per cent of the costs of staying in London (as well, of course, of my home in the Rhondda) entirely out of my own pocket."