Millionaire Tory MP Brian Binley faces action over £57k expense claim

Northampton South MP Brian Binley claimed £1,500 a month to rent the flat in Pimlico for more than three years despite House of Commons rules banning MPs from renting properties from themselves or their companies.

Mr Binley failed to inform Mr Cameron's scrutiny panel of the arrangement and senior Tory sources told the Standard today that the backbencher would now be ordered to submit his claims for re-examination.

"We will be looking at this very, very closely. We have always said that we want to be fair but where there are problems David is determined to be very firm" a source said.

The MPs expenses scandal is set to reopen tomorrow when Parliament finally publishes receipts for all 646 MPs. But MPs' addresses, which have exposed abuses of the system, will be kept secret.

Yesterday, the affair claimed yet another victim after Labour MP Jim Devine was deselected by the party's "star chamber" endorsements panel. He had submitted invoices for electrical work worth £2,157 from a company with a fake address and invalid VAT number.

Mr Devine had also faced questions over a £2,326 claim for shelving work said to have been carried out by the landlord of his local pub.

Mr Cameron is now under intense pressure to show similarly tough response to Mr Binley, who was first elected in 2005. To date, Mr Cameron has ordered some MPs to pay money back but only long-serving backbenchers have been forced to quit their seats.

Land Registry records show Mr Binley's £345,000 flat was owned by a company called BCC Marketing, of which he is the chairman and founder.

The Daily Telegraph revealed that Commons officials warned the MP in April 2006 that his claims were a breach of new rules. But he was allowed to continue claiming after appealing to Commons Speaker Michael Martin.

Mr Martin only ruled in April this year that the claims must stop but Mr Binley has not be told to repay the £57,000 claimed under the discredited second homes allowance for MPs.

Had Mr Binley bought the flat himself, he would only have been able to claim the interest on the mortgage.

Mr Binley, 67, insisted today that he had acted with honesty. In what the BBC called "sometimes strong and colourful language", Mr Binley said he would not allow the Telegraph to "bring him down".

He added that he had since moved into another flat nearby, but he was having to claim an extra £2,000 or £3,000 in expenses to pay a market rate.

"I did rent a flat...from a company that I founded. The rent charged included council tax, water rates, electricity, gas and all the furnishings and white goods in the flat," he said.

"When the mortgage was taken out, it was totally cleared by the Fees Office and when the rules were changed which stated that I could not rent from a company that I had an interest in, I appealed that decision. I sadly lost that appeal, accepted the decision and found another flat which unfortunately costs the taxpayer more money because that is the going rate."