MPs face office rent costs probe

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More than a quarter of MPs hire party-owned offices out of their allowances at a significantly higher average cost than colleagues who rent from independent landlords.

The discrepancy led to renewed demands for transparency in MPs' expenses so the public can see exactly how much is being paid and to whom out of their "incidental expenses provision".

About 180 MPs spent £1,333,408 of the allowance on office accommodation owned by their parties in one year - an average of more than £7,400.

That is almost 50% higher than the £5,000-a-year that the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) has calculated to be the average across all 646 MPs.

Mark Wallace, campaign director for the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The public are very concerned about how their money is being spent and on the face of it these figures will heighten those concerns.

"Our politicians must now publish all of their expenses in detail to reassure the public that the system is not being used for personal benefit or as a means of state funding of political parties through the backdoor."

Details of what individual MPs have claimed for constituency office accommodation are not yet in the public domain, although they are expected to be published later this year.

But the global figures paid to each political party were released to Parliament without fanfare as MPs broke up for their current Easter recess.

They show that the Conservative Party is getting nearly twice as much as Labour from renting office space to MPs. The Tories collected £737,995 in rent from its MPs in 2006/7 - the latest year for which figures are available - compared to £376,975 by Labour and £186,682 by the Liberal Democrats. The Scottish National Party earned £19,941 and Plaid Cymru £8,440.