FORMER county MP Boris Johnson has admitted putting in a claim for the cost of a Remembrance Sunday wreath on his Parliamentary expenses.

Mr Johnson, who stepped down as a Henley MP after being elected Mayor of London in May last year, said the £16.50 claim submitted for the wreath — which was rejected by the Commons authorities — had been “mistakenly added” to his expenses.

He said he had paid for it with his own money when it was pointed out to him.

Mr Johnson said: “Thame Town Council did send a bill to my office in 2006 and this was mistakenly added to my office expenses.

“As soon as this was pointed out I happily paid from my own pocket.”

His claim was revealed by The Daily Telegraph, which has obtained a copy of all MPs’ expenses going back four years.

Craig Treeby, the county manager for the Royal British Legion, said he was happy to accept Mr Johnson’s assurances it was a mistake.

He said: “I do happen to know from Mr Johnson that he was very supportive of the work that we did.

“I would certainly feel that it was a genuine error on his part.”

Mr Johnson, who has refused to rule out returning to Westminster in the future, claimed £85,299 on his second-home allowance for a house in his constituency between 2004 and 2008.

He claimed the maximum allowable second-home amount in his last two years as an MP, which Mr Johnson said covered only a proportion of his mortgage interest payments. In one year, he submitted only a single claim form, which covered an entire year’s mortgage interest repayments and council tax.

Mr Johnson refused to reveal his own expenses in full, ahead of the official publication by the Commons authorities expected in the next few weeks, arguing that the Telegraph had already produced a “rather long account”.

He added: “I do not think you will find there is much more to come out.”

Tory leader David Cameron has said he would be “very happy” to hand over any profits from the sale of his publicly funded west Oxfordshire home if a sleaze watchdog called for such a measure.

Mr Cameron bought the house, in Dean, in 2001 for about £650,000 to keep his family together at the weekends.

It is now estimated to be worth £1m — which means he would face having to pay £350,000 to the public purse on the sale of the property in the event of the rules on capital gains being changed.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Dr Evan Harris has already said he would return any capital gain on taypayer-funded property made when his parliamentary career ends.

Mr Cameron, who has claimed £102,000 of taxpayers’ money in mortgage interest on his second home between 2002 and 2007, has submitted his own expenses claims to the Tory Party’s internal scrutiny panel and has agreed to repay any money if asked.