THE disgraced MP Derek Conway has made a profit of more than £160,000 from selling a second home while claiming an £85,000 payout from the taxpayer.

Conway, 55, made the profit from the sale of his constituency house in Old Bexley and Sidcup. He was able to claim the expenses, including mortgage interest, for the cost of having to live away from home — Sidcup is 10 miles from Westminster and takes an hour to reach by train.

The disclosure will raise concerns that MPs acting fully within parliamentary rules can make sizeable personal profits using public money.

It will also increase pressure on parliament to publish full details of allowances claimed by MPs.

Conway, who did not respond to questions last week, was brought down after it was disclosed last year in The Sunday Times that he had been paying his son Freddie £981 a month for “research”, although he was a full-time student at Newcastle university.

He was suspended from the Commons for “at the least, an improper use” of public money and David Cameron threw him out of the parliamentary Conservative party this January.

In December 2002, Conway and his wife Colette took out a loan on their London property — a flat in Victoria, near Westminster. The following February, they bought a semi-detached house in Sidcup mortgage-free.

Then, in July last year, the Conways sold the constituency home home for £348,495, a price increase of more than £163,000 in four and a half years. During the same period, Derek Conway claimed £84,929 in additional costs allowances (ACA).

This allowance, designed to help with the cost of keeping two homes — one in the constituency and one in London — can be used to pay the interest on a mortgage, although not the capital.

MPs can also claim ACA to cover utility bills, service charges, food and home furnishings.

Earlier this month, the Commons was forced to publish its “John Lewis list”, which set out the amounts MPs can claim for home furnishings, including £10,000 for a new kitchen and £750 for a stereo.

Under the rules of the ACA, the MP must designate which residence is their “main home” and can then claim the allowance on the second one. It is not known which was declared by Conway, who did not respond to questions put by The Sunday Times.

Cameron has now asked front bench MPs to fill in a form detailing all expenses over £200.

Several MPs have made hundreds of thousands of pounds on London properties, even though some of them live within commuting distance of Westminster.

Barry Gardiner, the former Labour minister, paid £246,500 for a flat in Pimlico in 2003. He sold it again in 2007 for £445,000, a profit of almost £200,000 in four years. His constituency Brent North is approximately 8 miles from Westminster and Gardiner’s family home is in Chorleywood, which is on the London underground Metropolitan line.

This weekend, Gardiner said the flat in the prestigious mansion block was in “poor shape” when he bought it, with “bare boards” on the floor, which is why it was “cheap”.

He said he had bought items such as carpets and curtains with the ACA. He has claimed over £80,000 on the Pimlico flat in four years.

Gardiner said: “The capital gains tax payable on the flat would be more than the total additional cost allowance, so not a penny has been lost to the public.”

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