PM under pressure over bill for cleaning services

The Prime Minister faced growing pressure to give more details of the cleaner whom he jointly employed with his brother, Andrew.

Questions were also being asked over why he switched the property he declared to be his second home before moving into No 10.

Expenses receipts showed that between 2004 and 2006, Mr Brown paid his brother £6,577 over 26 months, for the cleaning of his home.

Downing Street stressed that the Browns had shared a cleaner and added that the individual was not a relative or friend. No 10 said it was all above board and released a copy of the cleaning contract. A spokesman insisted there was nothing "unusual or wrong" in the arrangement, under which the Prime Minister's brother Andrew paid the cleaner.

Evidence: the receipt, as published in today's Daily Telegraph, showing payments to Andrew Brown

However, the question remained as to why the Prime Minister did not himself pay the cleaner directly.

The contract shows the cleaner was paid £357 a month — a rate of £4,284 a year — from December 2004 for work at the brothers' flats in SW1. The cleaner spent seven hours at the then-Chancellor's home and three hours at his brother's. The Daily Telegraph reported that the Prime Minister and his wife Sarah paid his brother £241.30 a month, rising to £262 later, for his share of the cleaning services.

A Downing Street spokesman added: "The system of payment is clear: Mr Andrew Brown paid the cleaner; Mr Gordon Brown paid him his proper share, which then went directly to the cleaner. All insurance and income tax was paid in the usual way, as can be seen." Andrew Brown, a senior executive at EDF Energy, threatened to call the police this morning when the Evening Standard tried to question him about the cleaning arrangements.

Details also emerged of expenses claimed by Gordon Brown after he changed the property registered as his second home from his London flat to his constituency house in Fife. He made the switch in September 2006, 10 days after Tony Blair announced that he would quit as Prime Minister the following year. He does not claim for mortgage interest payments on the Fife home but has submitted bills for a cleaner, at £10.50 an hour, with the cost of the gardener being nearly £1,500 a year. As he lives at No 10, Mr Brown has received payments for two homes.