Douglas Hogg, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister, has denied claiming the cost of clearing the moat at his country estate from taxpayers despite including the item on a list of expenses submitted to the authorities.
Mr Hogg wrote to the House of Commons authorities in 2003 that his expenses were so high that he could not submit receipts for every individual item as other MPs were required to do.
To justify his assertion, he sent a list – published by the Telegraph today - of all the costs involved in maintaining his country property to the parliamentary fees office, including “about £2,000” for cleaning the moat.
However, Mr Hogg insists he never meant for the public purse to pick up this cost.
Along with his claim he also included a 10 page submission for work including piano tuning and repairs to his stable lights.
On a detailed three page letter to officials, he wrote: “Whilst some items may be disputable as to whether they do or do not fall within the allowance, I would suggest that it is certain that allowable expenditure exceeds the allowance by a sizeable margin and consequently we need not spent too much time on debate.”
The fees office, which is supposed to be responsible for policing the second home allowance, permitted the Tory grandee to claim automatically 1/12 of his annual maximum allowance without submitting receipts for a number of years.
As public outrage grew over his claims, Mr Hogg defended his actions, saying: “It is true the system is clearly flawed.
Read on and watch the video of him try and explain himself: http://tinyurl.com/r8dn27
Take a look at his mansion: http://tinyurl.com/oqxh2b
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