Reform UK's Suella Braverman claims massive taxpayer-funded water bill at home equal to 18 baths a day

Reform UK's Suella Braverman claims massive taxpayer-funded water bill at home equal to 18 baths a day EXCLUSIVE: Benefits-bashing Reform UK MP Suella Braverman claimed £45,000 in parliamentary expenses towards her water bills, newly-emerged files show - leaving the taxpayer on the hook Reform MP Suella Braverman ran up a huge taxpayer-funded water bill at her family home – equivalent to 18 bathfuls a day. The former Home Secretary’s family got through 1,504 litres of water daily at her £1.2million four-bedroom pad in a five-month period from June 2024. Mrs Braverman claimed £45,000 for utility bills on expenses from 2017 to 2025. Affinity Water billed her £657.36 for June to November 2024, according to details obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The supplier told her it was enough water to “fill more than 18 bathtubs and 368.54% more water than the average similar-sized household”, campaign group Led By Donkeys discovered. It is also enough water refill a large residential swimming pool every month but satellite images of the Hertfordshire show no sign of a pool. Mrs Braverman was able to claim for bills because she did not claim rent for her second home, which was her parents’ property in her constituency in Fareham, Hants. The maximum amount an MP could claim in accommodation costs for their own home in 2024-25 was £6,630 – but in that year Mrs Braverman was able to claim £7,316 by stating that the property doubled-up as her home office. Parliamentary authorities can claim for home office costs “additional to those which are part of the normal cost of living in the home”. Mrs Braverman allocated 20% of her water and other utility bills to her home office use. That meant in the summer of 2024, she was claiming office expenses for enough water to fill a thousand cups of tea a day. In 2023/24, Mrs Braverman claimed a total of £4,565.10 in utility bills – the fourth highest such claim by an MP and nearly three times the average. The year after it was £4,538.76 – the third highest. In 2022, while running for the Tory leadership, she said: “Too many people in this country are choosing to rely on benefits, on taxpayers’ money, on your money, my money, to get by.” Mrs Braverman, who defected from the Tories to Reform UK last year, now claims for a new constituency home in Winchester. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority said that all the MP’s homes were correctly registered. A spokesman for Mrs Braverman said: “All rules have been followed.”