Reform UK MP Suella Braverman claimed £45,000 in parliamentary expenses towards her water bills between 2017 and 2025, newly-emerged files show. The claims cover utility bills at her family home, where water usage reached 1,504 litres a day – enough to fill more than 18 bathtubs.
Water usage at family home
The former Home Secretary's family used 1,504 litres of water daily at her £1.2 million four-bedroom property over a five-month period from June 2024. Affinity Water billed her £657.36 for June to November 2024, according to details obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Campaign group Led By Donkeys discovered that the supplier told her the water usage was enough to "fill more than 18 bathtubs and 368.54% more water than the average similar-sized household". The amount is also sufficient to refill a large residential swimming pool every month, although satellite images of Hertfordshire show no sign of a pool.
Expenses claims and home office allocation
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 she claimed £7,316 by stating that the property doubled as her home office.
She allocated 20% of her water and other utility bills to home office use. In the summer of 2024, this meant she was claiming office expenses for enough water to fill a thousand cups of tea a day.
Previous criticism of benefits claimants
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 following year 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."
