A former aide to David Cameron and one of the highest-profile victims of the expenses scandal has won the right for his case to be decided by an independent House of Commons review.

Andrew MacKay and two other Conservative MPs, Brian Binley and Anne Main, have withheld any repayments until after an official investigation, despite the party’s efforts to resolve the issues with an internal “scrutiny panel”. Their actions overshadowed an interim report by the panel which said that Tory MPs had agreed to pay back a further £125,000 in expenses.

The biggest single sum expected to be repaid was £25,000 by Eleanor Laing, the Shadow Justice Minister, which is thought to have been part of the profit on the sale of a home funded by the taxpayer. The repayments are on top of the £135,000 already returned to the Commons authorities. But as Mr Cameron said that his MPs had responded in a “positive way” to his expenses purge, it became clear that some of the most high-profile cases had not been tackled.

Mr MacKay, who claimed a second home allowance despite having no other residence, faces a potential bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds. The interim report, however, showed that the MP for Bracknell, until recently one of Mr Cameron’s closest advisers, had repaid nothing. Instead it said that his case would “be considered by the House of Commons-led review”.

It is understood that the panel decided it could not rule on Mr MacKay’s case. His wife, Julie Kirkbride, also an MP, agreed to repay about £700 for a bed claimed for their son.

Mr Binley, a Tory MP who insists that he did nothing wrong in claiming rent for a flat owned by his company, has also failed to return any money. His case is being investigated by the Commons standards watchdog. It is also looking at the case of Ms Main, whose daughter lived in a flat subsidised by the taxpayer. Tory sources said that five other cases were still unresolved.

The scrutiny panel has angered some Tory MPs, and Mr Cameron tried to calm his party before the interim publication in a private meeting yesterday morning. Later, he acknowledged that the sixmember panel that studied the claims of all Tory MPs may have made mistakes.

“In some cases it may have been too tough. In others, some may feel it has not been tough enough. We had a small team. This was not a forensic accounting examination. The House of Commons examination may pick up issues which we have not,” he said.

Among others to have repaid large sums was Bill Cash, the MP for Stone, who agreed to return a £15,000 second home allowance. John Gummer, a former minister, will repay £11,538 for gardening and household expenses.

The Tories said that nine MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader, had voluntarily agreed to forgo all or part of future second home allowance claims. The party said that the potential claims would have been about £108,600.

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