Andy Burnham spent eight months begging the Fees Office to pay out on a claim for more than £16,500 to buy and redecorate a flat in London.

After rejecting the claim three times, the authorities finally gave in to a series of desperate pleas from the Culture Secretary and his wife to pay the money. Mr Burnham even told the Fees Office that he “might be in line for a divorce” if he did not get the money quickly, The Daily Telegraph claimed last night.

Mr Burnham claimed the money for the flat in South London shortly after being paid £18,230 to move out of a flat that he rented in a Westminster estate. Although he paid the windfall back to parliamentary authorities, he was able to effectively add it to his existing second-home allowance, according to the newspaper. He said last night: “I reject absolutely any suggestion that I have not used public funds properly since I entered Parliament. Indeed, over the last five years I have under-claimed on my Additional Costs Allowance by around £40,000.”

There is no suggestion that Mr Burnham, or any other member of the Cabinet, has broken any rules. All the claims must be approved by the parliamentary authorities before being paid. The revelations highlight the extraordinary extent of claims that MPs have made on taxpayers’ money, however.

The publication of the Cabinet’s expenses yesterday provides a taster of the release in July of the receipts for every MP going back to 2004.

All 750,000 receipts submitted by MPs as part of an expenses claim going back to 2004 are due to be published over the summer.

This follows a four-year Freedom of Information battle, resisted by the Speaker and the Commons authorities, which ended in the High Court. The receipts are expected to be heavily redacted when they are published in July, with information removed to protect MPs’ home addresses.

Rumours are circulating the Commons that some MPs may be shamed into standing down immediately because of their claims, which would lead to by-elections.

Copies of the receipts appear to have leaked into the public domain ahead of publication, and to have been offered for sale to journalists. The Times revealed in February that it had been approached by a businessman offering to sell data about expenses for all MPs in return for about £300,000.

The information being offered for sale is said to be unredacted — meaning that it is possible to identify home addresses of MPs, something likely to cause significant concern.

Despite MPs being aware of the leak, they have not called in the police. MPs on the Speakers’ committee were advised by lawyers last month that the leak of the information was not necessarily a crime since much of it was to be published anyway.

Shaun Woodward, the richest member of the Cabinet, claimed the maximum second-home allowance on a flat that is one of at least seven homes that he owns.

The Northern Ireland Secretary claimed almost £100,000 between 2004 and 2008 on the £1.35 million London flat where he stays when Parliament is sitting. Mr Woodward, whose wife is a member of the Sainsbury grocery family, is worth an estimated £15 million. The couple own a house in Oxfordshire, a constituency home in St Helens, land in the West Indies and holiday homes in New York and France, which they let, it is reported. A spokesman said: “Mr Woodward’s allowance claims are published every year and they are within the rules.”

Hazel Blears claimed for three properties in one year. In March 2004 she claimed that her second home was a house in Salford, for which she bought a £850 television and a £651 mattress at taxpayers’ expense. That April she designated a flat in South London as her second home and began claiming £850 a month for the mortgage. In August she sold the flat and during September and October stayed in London hotels on expenses. In December she bought another flat in London and over the next few months spent almost £5,000 on furniture.

A spokesman for the Communities Secretary said: “All Hazel Blears’s claims for parliamentary allowances are in line with the rules and have been approved by the House of Commons authorities. In order to do her job as MP for Salford she has to have accommodation to be near to the Commons during the week.”

Lord Mandelson charged taxpayers almost £3,000 for work on his home in Hartlepool days after standing down as an MP in 2004 to become a European Commissioner. He later sold it for a profit of £136,000, the Telegraph reported. A spokesman for Lord Mandelson, who returned as Business Secretary in October, said last night: “This takes a germ of truth and turns it into something it isn’t. The expenditure on Peter Mandelson’s home was to repair it, not improve it.”

It was also reported that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, charged hundred of pounds for gardening while Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, changed the designation of his second home four times in a year.

Caroline Flint, the Europe Minister, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, were said to have claimed back stamp duty and moving costs when buying flats, or the freehold of flats they already owned.

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