Caroline Spelman is to seek to persuade the Commons standards watchdog today that she did nothing wrong in paying her nanny’s wage with taxpayers’ cash.

The Conservative Party chairman spent yesterday compiling evidence that she says proves that Tina Haynes fully earned her salary carrying out constituency tasks. But Mrs Spelman must explain to John Lyon, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, why Ms Haynes received only board, lodgings and the use of a car for also working as the MP’s nanny.

David Cameron advised Mrs Spelman on Saturday to seek Mr Lyon’s ruling, his aides said yesterday.

Two more Tory MEPs defended their use of allowances, after Giles Chichester’s resignation as group leader. Sir Robert Atkins had visited New York on European Parliament expenses for his son’s wedding; the claim was valid, he said, because he had been invited to the US by the Republicans at the time of congressional elections. John Purvis was disclosed to be paying staff allowances of up to £120,000 through a consultancy in which he is a partner. He had not had a response to a request to the Parliament for clarification on this made 18 months ago.

Mrs Spelman’s colleagues rallied round. George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said that she had huge integrity and honesty. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “I would be amazed if there’s any substance to this. She says this is something she did for one year, and thought it might be misrepresented or misinterpreted; it wasn’t outside the rules at the time and she put it right then.”

In a statement backing Mrs Spelman’s account, Ms Haynes said: “During the period of 1997 to 2002 Mrs Caroline Spelman employed me at her home address, and during the period of 1997 to 1998 I had two roles, one helping Mrs Spelman with childcare and an other providing secretarial help to her as an MP. My roles and responsibilities were general administration, which entailed tasks such as posting of letters, answering phone calls at the home address, faxing or posting documents to Mrs Spelman whilst she was in London. This was performed during the hours that her children were at school. On Fridays, any help with directions to constituency events was given.”

Hugh Thomas, the Conservatives’ new head of financial compliance, is to travel to Brussels to ensure that MEPs have no more skeletons in the closets.

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