A Lanarkshire MP has explained why her subscription to Amazon Prime has been charged to the taxpayer, after the service was found claimed back in her expenses.
Angela Crawley has submitted the subscription in her expense claims as far back as 2017, but has insisted it's only been used to save on delivery costs.
The Lanark and Hamilton East MP also claimed back a one-off payment of £18.50 for Now TV in April 2020 but she has since told this was for broadband when she had to work in London at the beginning of the pandemic.
In the full list of expenses recently revealed, numerous items have been purchased by Ms Crawley from Amazon over the past couple of years, most of which were listed under office equipment and furniture.
One purchase in July 2021 was billed at £190.80 with the description "printer, photocopier and scanner", and another in April that year for £103.98 as "other office equipment".
In total, Ms Crawley's expenses show 26 Amazon Prime payments of £7.99 being charged since September 2017, and one charged at £0.99 in that time. It totals £208.73 charged to the taxpayer within the almost five-year period.
The SNP politician says the account has been "sporadically active" and has been cancelled a number of times when not needed.
On her expenses log, there were 13 occasions where payments of £7.99 were refunded due to be incorrectly charged.
Amazon Prime customers are charged £7.99 per month and are rewarded with free and quick delivery of products.
As part of the service, customers also have access to the company's free TV streaming service as well as music.
Speaking to Lanarkshire Live, Ms Crawley said she understands why they public would be concerned at Amazon Prime appearing in her expenses.
She said: "Since I was first elected in 2015, my office has ordered numerous things from Amazon so in order to save on delivery costs I have previously taken out a subscription to Amazon Prime.
"The subscription was only taken out to save taxpayers’ money and is no longer active.
"Some of the purchases from my office while the Prime subscription was active were for notebooks, antibacterial wipes and a hand sanitiser dispenser. For context, this was in order to make my office a Covid safe work environment for my staff.
"The subscription has been sporadically active and has included a number of free trials offered by Amazon. At no point would it have been cost effective to take out a subscription longer than the shortest offered by Amazon so it has been activated and cancelled a number of times."
When asked about the Now TV expense claim, Ms Crawley explained: "The Now TV charge in April 2020 was for broadband for the flat I rented in London. The service has since been rebranded as Now Broadband.
"Due to the Covid lockdown in 2020, it was impractical to work on the parliamentary estate as often as normal so this allowed me to work from home while in London when I was not required in Parliament."
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which handles MPs’ expense claims, has previously stated Prime subscriptions can be within the rules, but “the MP will need to justify that the subscription is primarily used for parliamentary purposes at the time they submit the claim”.
As well as office equipment and furniture, Ms Crawley also purchased stationery from Amazon, with one claim billed at £140.73 in February 2021.
She added: "I can understand completely why my constituents would be concerned when they see that their MP has claimed something on their expenses which is most commonly associated with entertainment and not business purposes.
"My office’s Amazon account has never been used to access any service offered by Amazon Prime other than free delivery.
"I would also like to stress that every penny my office has spent over the last seven years has been on a legitimate business expense which was independently approved by IPSA."
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