Conservative MP claimed nearly £22,000 to fund Polish lessons

The House of Commons has disclosed that Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, Daniel Kawczynsk, has received almost £22,000 worth of Polish lessons. He received tuition worth £8,244 in 2020-21 alone, equivalent to around £158 a week.

Mr Kawczynsk previously claimed that he was “almost fluent” in Polish and was using this skill to encourage Warsaw to block an extension of the Brexit Article 50 period.

Over the past five years, Members of Parliament have received more than £127,000 worth of free classes in French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian and Arabic.

This includes shadow Commons leader Thangam Debonnaire took £3,411 worth of Arabic classes in 2020-21. Debonnaire has since stated that it “helps me communicate” with the diverse population’ in her Bristol West constituency.

Another Conservative, Stuart Anderson, was listed as having £4,058.88 worth of Punjabi lessons. His Wolverhampton seat has a large Indian community

Danielle Boxall, media campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “This is a lot of money for language courses that many taxpayers couldn’t afford for themselves. … If MPs want to learn another language, they should pay for classes out of their own pocket and not expect taxpayers to pick up the bill”.