Kent MPs’ IPSA spending league table 2024–25: who claimed the most and least (total office, staffing, accommodation and travel costs)

Kent and Medway’s MPs claimed £3,591,044.17 in parliamentary staffing and “business costs” in the 2024–25 financial year (1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025), according to IPSA’s published “total spend” data. 

The biggest single claimant in the Kent cohort was Tom Tugendhat (Conservative, Tonbridge) on £287,101.19. The lowest was Lauren Edwards (Labour, Rochester and Strood) on £133,785.75 — a spread of £153,315.44 between top and bottom.

It is worth stressing what this is (and is not). These figures cover the running costs of an MP’s office and parliamentary work: staff salaries, office costs, accommodation, and travel/subsistence — not a personal “expenses account”. IPSA itself cautions that comparisons can be difficult because MPs’ costs vary with geography, constituency characteristics, and other factors. 

Where the money goes: mostly staff

Across the Kent figures, staffing dominates: just under £2.94m of the £3.59m total (about 82%) went on staffing. That broadly matches IPSA’s repeated national message that the bulk of MPs’ funding is used to employ staff. 

Another important caveat: IPSA notes that “total spend” can include some items that do not appear in the publishable “individual claims” data (for example certain security-related or protected costs), so totals and itemised public claims will not always perfectly reconcile. 

The league table: Kent MPs by total claimed (2024–25)

(Party labels are taken from the UK Parliament “MPs and Lords” database entries for each MP.)

A big election-year warning label

One reason the table splits sharply is timing. Many Kent MPs were first elected in July 2024, meaning they only operated for part of the 2024–25 year — which naturally pulls their totals down compared with longer-serving MPs. In other words: this is a legitimate league table of totals, but it is not a pure measure of “who is most expensive” in operational style.

Spotlight: Tony Vaughan, Labour’s highest Kent claimant

The highest-spending Labour MP in the Kent figures is Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe), ranked 7th overall, with £231,054.81 claimed. 

Two details stand out.

First, Vaughan’s spending follows the broad pattern: staffing accounts for the overwhelming majority (about £180,607.80, roughly 78% of his total). Office costs and accommodation sit in the next tier.

Second, Vaughan records the highest travel and subsistence total in the Kent cohort at £8,475.11 — still a small slice of his total spend, but the biggest travel line among these MPs. That may reflect the practical realities of parliamentary travel rather than anything more dramatic, but it is precisely the kind of detail constituents often want explained in plain English: most “MP spending” is payroll and the machinery of a public-facing office, not first-class rail tickets and hotel minibars.

And what about MPs’ salaries?

MP pay is a separate line from these business-cost totals. IPSA sets MPs’ salaries and publishes salary data separately; the annual salary rate from 1 April 2024 was £91,346 (before tax and usual deductions). 

That distinction matters, because debates about “MP expenses” often blur two very different things: the cost of employing staff and running an office versus the MP’s own pay.

The bottom line

Taken together, Kent’s figures underline something IPSA has been saying for years: MPs’ budgets are, overwhelmingly, staff budgets — caseworkers, office managers and researchers doing the day-to-day work that constituents actually experience.

The more difficult question — and the one that can’t be answered by a simple ranking — is whether the service residents receive is consistently worth what is being spent. The totals are the start of that conversation, not the end.

The Shepway Vox Team

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