McNulty: I haven't broken any rules

Employment minister Tony McNulty said he would not return the estimated £60,000 he has received for the property in his Harrow East constituency since 2001/02, but confirmed that he has stopped claiming the second home allowance.

Mr McNulty said that he uses the house as a base two or three days a week while working in the constituency, and used to sleep there at weekends when he first entered Parliament.

But Conservatives questioned the claim, pointing out that Mr McNulty's constituency office where he holds regular weekly surgeries is less than two minutes' drive away and suggesting that he appears to visit the house only to see his parents.

Conservative MP Greg Hands said Mr McNulty's position looked "indefensible".

"He admits that the arrangement looks odd and that he stopped it in January, but won't repay the £60,000 he took from taxpayers to fund it," said Mr Hands. "Once again, the position of one of Gordon Brown's ministers looks indefensible. It clearly needs to be investigated."

Mr McNulty lived with his parents in the Harrow house, which he owns, before his 2002 marriage to second wife Christine. After moving into her home in Hammersmith, west London, he claimed the second home allowance on the Harrow property while his parents continued to live there.

In January this year he decided to stop claiming the allowance as interest rates had fallen so far that he found he was able to meet his mortgage commitments from his MP's salary.

Asked on Sky News' Sunday Live why he was claiming expenses on a property where his parents live, Mr McNulty said: "I use it considerably. I work there at weekends when I am in the constituency. I have said clearly that I was probably spending one or two nights a weekend there early on when I was an MP. It probably is less now.

"But I think I can do my job more effectively by having that base in the constituency. I think I can do my ministerial job more effectively by having a place in London."