A TORY MP has broken ranks to become the first to publish a complete breakdown of his Commons expenses claims.

In a move that will challenge the secrecy surrounding MPs’ allowances, Ben Wallace has released detailed information about how he spends more than £152,000 of taxpayers’ money.

He lists more than 200 claims, including how much he claimed for a second home in Clapham, south London; how much “petty cash” he withdrew; how much he spent on mobile phone calls and office furniture; and how much he paid his staff. It includes his wife, Liza, who is employed as a part-time parliamentary researcher. All but two items are supported by a receipt. [Click here to see documents: part 1 | part 2

The move follows the suspension of the Tory MP Derek Conway from the Commons after he was caught paying his two sons more than £80,000 as researchers despite there being no evidence of them doing any work. His offence came to light after The Sunday Times disclosed last May that Conway was paying his younger son Freddie while he was still at university.

Last night Conway insisted he had done nothing wrong and accused his own colleagues of helping to engineer his downfall. “This was a golden opportunity – clearly supported by some Tories, some of whom may well have had their own agenda,” he told a newspaper.

He also complained that MPs are paid “less than the sous-chef at the Commons” and said their salaries should be raised to £100,000 a year from £60,675. He also claimed the way his son Henry was portrayed in some reports was “homophobic”, adding: “We have known that he has been gay for a long time. We aren’t ashamed of it. He’s a lovely boy and we have always supported him.”

Wallace’s decision will put all 646 MPs under pressure to abandon attempts to keep expenses claims secret and will expose those who refuse to release details to accusations that they have something to hide.

MPs led by Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker, will renew their battle against disclosure at a tribunal hearing, when the Commons’s ruling body will appeal against a decision by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner. He wants MPs to provide a full breakdown of their most controversial allowance — the £22,110 hand-out for MPs outside London to fund and furnish second homes.

Wallace, a former member of the Scottish parliament, where full publication of expenses claims is already mandatory, has gone further than the scope of the tribunal by also providing details of his claims from the £21,339 pot available to each MP to run their offices.

Wallace, MP for Lancaster and Wyre and a former Scots Guard who served as an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland, said: “Transparency is the only way forward for us if we are to start rebuilding trust between the electorate and ourselves. I don’t want to spend my political life in the shadow of innuendo.”

Most of Wallace’s budget for a second home, known as the additional costs allowance, went on renting a flat in Clapham, southwest London, which cost £19,561, council tax for the property, water and electricity.

Wallace said: “As people can see, it’s not top-secret stuff. I am sure some will say that I spent too much or too little on one thing or another. So be it. The point is, it’s all there in the open.”

His decision comes as party leaders scramble to restore public confidence in MPs’ integrity. Gordon Brown and David Cameron now want MPs to reveal whether they employ relatives.

The Conservative lead over Labour narrowed by two points, according to an ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph taken after Conway was stripped of the whip. It put Cameron’s party on 37% — down three points on a similar poll a month ago — Labour on 32% (down one point) and the Liberal Democrats on 21% (up three).

Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which will review the pay and allowances system in the wake of the Conway affair, warned that MPs must become more open about the way they spend public money, for their own good.

“The [Conway] incident has added to the general feeling that there is something wrong, when the great majority of MPs go about their work with diligence and integrity. Perceptions clearly have not improved,” he said last night. “Ironically that may be because there is now more transparency than ever.”

This weekend it emerged that Peter Hain is using his Commons expenses to pay his 80-year-old mother £5,400 a year for “secretarial assistance”. Although Hain was supported by civil servants, special advisers, private secretaries and secretaries on becoming a minister in 1997, he continued to pay Adelaine Hain.

Hain, who resigned as work and pensions secretary last month, said his mother did “a lot of back-up work” for him, including sending out his Christmas cards and writing complex letters. The MP said she worked “in addition to his constituency and Commons staff” for a relatively low wage. He said her age was not an issue and that she was “an extremely capable person who operates e-mail and who uses a mobile phone”.

There is no suggestion Hain has broken Commons rules by paying his mother from his parliamentary allowances. But the role played by MPs’ relatives is to be investigated by a Commons committee that is expected to look at whether MPs are in effect operating job creation schemes for family members.

Another Tory, Bob Spink, MP for Castle Point in Essex, employs his former wife as a £28,000-a-year secretary, even though she lives 150 miles from his constituency. The Tories have admitted that 70 of their 193 MPs employ relatives. Spink said his former wife worked on his “diary, ongoing campaigns and case work, bulk mailings and some databases”.

MPs claim for rent paid to children

A MARRIED couple who are both Tory MPs are using allowances funded by the taxpayer to rent a flat from their own children.

In an arrangement which helps avoid inheritance tax, Sir Nicholas Winterton and his wife Ann have put the London property into a trust set up for their offspring.

Because it no longer belongs to them, they have been able to claim £165,826 to stay there, passing the cash to the trust in the form of rent.

But Commons rules say MPs should not use the accommodation allowance to lease property from themselves, or any organisation they, or their relatives, have an interest in.

The Wintertons’ arrangement, detailed in The Mail on Sunday today, concerns a flat on Greycoat Street, Westminster. Their £195,000 mortgage was paid off by February 2002, when the flat was transferred to the trust.

Under Commons rules, the couple would have been unable to continue claiming accommodation expenses after the mortgage had been paid off had they kept the property in their own names.

Their children have benefited from the rent, and a reduction in liability for inheritance tax.

Sir Nicholas said: “I see nothing unethical or wrong . . . it was agreed by the Commons Fees Office. I happen to rent a property that I bought outright.”

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