EastEnders MEP pays gay lover £30,000 to be his secretary

Paul Cottingham receives the cash even though he is also the director of a public relations firm.

Mr Cashman, the West Midlands Euro MP, employs civil partner Mr Cottingham as an 'accounts manager, payroll administrator and personal manager' from his parliamentary expenses, according to the European Parliament's register of interests.

Civil partnership: Michael Cashman, left, and Paul Cottingham with Cherie Blair

Mr Cottingham -  who has been with Mr Cashman for more than 20 years  -  also runs Cause Celebre, a high-profile PR firm that has hosted a string of glitzy events for the Labour Party.

At one fundraising dinner for the Scottish Labour Party, Tony Blair  -  the then Prime Minister  -  was the guest speaker. Gordon Brown also attended a fundraising event ahead of the 1999 European elections, when Mr Cashman was voted in.

The revelations will lead to more questions over exactly how MEPs on the Brussels gravy train use taxpayer-funded expenses.

Mr Cashman, 57, is the first Labour MEP to be dragged into the expenses row, which has dogged the Tories.

Michael Cashman poses with his gay partner Paul Cottingham

There is no suggestion any Brussels rules have been broken, but critics asked how Mr Cottingham can justify his £30,000 a year salary when he is director of a PR firm.

Neil O'Brien, the director of thinktank Open Europe, said: 'This opens up serious questions about how Mr Cottingham can combine both roles. Is he providing value-formoney for a salary of £30,000 a year if he is also the boss of a PR firm?

'Mr Cashman should be prepared to publish his expenses in full to show that everything is above board.'

Mr Cashman was the first major gay actor in a British soap when he played Colin Russell in EastEnders. His character was the first male to kiss another man in a UK soap opera.

It also emerged that a Tory MEP who has made just just two speeches in four years, pays his wife up to £60,000 a year of taxpayers' money to be his 'secretary/assistant'.

David Sumberg uses his parliamentary expenses to pay Carolyn an annual salary, which is almost as much as he earns himself.

Since 2004, the North West MEP has spoken only 536 words in the Brussels chamber despite being allowed pay and perks worth about £1.1million  -  which works out at £2,052 a word.

Despite representing the North West constituency, the former solicitor lives 200 miles away in a £2million house in London.

In the past four years, he has made only two speeches  -  one on antisemitism and one during a debate which he claimed was biased against Israel  -  in the European Parliament. He has only tabled two questions.

Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies  -  who blew the whistle on a multi-million pound expenses scandal in February  -  said: 'The people of the North West deserve better from their representatives. I doubt if anyone locally has ever heard of David Sumberg.'

But Mr Sumberg  -  who will stand down at the Euro elections next year  -  defended his wife's salary.

He said: 'She is a fully qualified secretary with a masters degree in French and she has worked for me all the time I have been in politics since 1983.

Beyond a little bit of help, she is doing the whole job and his pay is perfectly justified.'

Asked whether his record represented-value for money, he said: 'Making speeches in the European Parliament do not achieve a great deal. There are completely empty chambers with no one listening.'

At least five other Tory MEPs have been implicated in the expenses scandal  -  prompting Tory leader David Cameron to send his ' sleazebuster', Hugh Thomas to Brussels, to clean up the mess.

The newly-appointed head of compliance will hold face-to-face meetings with MEPs today to warn them they face the sack if they are found to have misused lucrative expenses worth more than £280,000 a year.

Back home, Mr Cameron faced another headache as Parliament's standards watchdog John Lyon said he was 'considering carefully' whether to investigate Tory chairman Caroline Spelman over allegations she paid her childminder out of publicly-funded staff allowances.

Mrs Spelman insisted it was 'entirely within the rules' to employ nanny Tina Haynes as her constituency secretary for 30 hours a week in 1997 and 1998.