WITNEY MP David Cameron has claimed for meals, taxis and phone upgrades on his Parliamentary expenses.
Last week, constituents were able to view the full list of Mr Cameron’s expenses, claimed since 2004, online.
The Conservative Party leader has been criticised for claiming £680 for repairs at his second home in Dean, near Chipping Norton, which he has agreed to pay back.
The repairs included clearing vines and wisteria off the chimney, repairing toilets and resealing a conservatory roof.
He wrote to the Commons Fees Office volunteering the repayment of £947.29 – which included the £680 for repairs – after identifying a series of over-claims.
These included £218.91 in mortgage over-claims and £29.38 he claimed towards a banner on his website he was asked by the Commons authorities to take down.
Mr Cameron said: “All politicians should recognise that, jointly and individually, we are responsible for operating a bad system.
“Those who most infuriate the public are the ones who say ‘I did nothing wrong, because I obeyed the rules and therefore I am not going to be doing anything about it’.
“The maintenance bill for my house, the one I chose to pay back, was 100 per cent within the rules and agreed by the Fees Office.”
The expense claims of every MP for the past four years were made available at the website parliament.uk last week, following The Daily Telegraph’s month-long expose.
However, some key details of claims have been blacked out by House of Commons officials before being put online.
The addresses that expenses claims relate to, along with personal details of employees, have been excised on grounds of privacy and security.
Other expenses published show that Mr Cameron claimed for his monthly broadband fee, office stationery and the room hire for his surgeries in Witney.
They include £8,056 in 2006-7 on postage, of which £6,800 was on envelopes.
In total, from 2004 until last year, Mr Cameron spent £19,433 on postage, and in the same period, spent £10,660 on stationery.
Despite Mr Cameron calling for the scrapping of the Communications Allowance – which allows MPs to spend thousands of pounds on websites – last March the MP claimed £564 of taxpayers’ money for his site.
But a spokesman for the MP said this was towards making the website more accessible for those with sight problems.
In April 2007, he claimed £200 for meals and £304.50 in August the same year.
In 2007, he claimed £6,879.52 for his constituency office costs, which included the salaries for a part-time researcher and secretary and room hire costs.
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