Sir – Former Labour Parliamentary candidate John Power suggests (letter, June 24) that I was one of those MPs criticised over expenses and that is why I had paid money back. This is not the case.

There was nothing in the 2004/5 to 2007/8 expenses published by the Daily Telegraph that I have been asked or expected to pay back, because my claims were for a small one-bedroom flat in Westminster and not for any TVs, lavish furniture or new bathrooms or bedrooms. Let alone fictional mortgages, duck houses or moats.

However, the House has resolved to tighten the rules for the future, which I have always voted for, and I hope this will exclude, for example, claims for food subsistence, which I stopped claiming over 18 months ago.

But if the House is going to reform the system from now on, I believe that that should be back-dated. So, I have paid back allowable, uncriticised claims made in 2008-9. This year has not yet been published by the Commons nor leaked to the press but has already been set out on my website.

My payment back was “in-year” and not retrospective. It was designed to set an example, not to be a stick that political opponents could use. I reckoned without the resourcefulness of Mr Power.

Evan Harris MP Oxford