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Blair and Brown have expenses revealed after BBC request

04/04/2008

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are among a group of six MPs who have had their expenses published after a freedom of information request went unchallenged.

It shows the breakdown of the MPs' spending on travel, staffing, IT, stationery and their second home expenses will now be made public.

It reveals Mr Blair claimed his £116 TV licence while Michael Howard and Mr Brown claimed for their council tax bills on their second home.

All six of the MPs have claimed money to cover mortgage repayments.

The detailed breakdown shows former deputy prime minister John Prescott claimed £4,000 a year for food and Mr Brown spent £11,826.81 on flights.

The Commons is challenging a separate freedom of information request relating to 14 MPs' second home allowance.

In 2005, the BBC requested the expenses claims of then prime minister Mr Blair, along with Mr Brown, Mr Howard, Charles Kennedy, Mr Prescott and Tory MP Jonathan Sayeed for 2003/04.

The Commons originally objected, arguing it risked allowing people to establish the MPs' travel patterns but the information commissioner Richard Thomas ruled in January that the BBC's request should be upheld.

The Conservatives welcomed the publication of the details.

A spokeswoman confirmed all Conservative frontbenchers would declare their parliamentary claims from July, with backbenchers encouraged to do likewise.

There is no suggestion any of the claims revealed today amount to a breach of the rules and some MPs argue the focus on MPs' spending amounts to a witch hunt.

Labour's Ann Cryer said politicians were "all being tarred with the same brush".

She told BBC's The World at One: "We are all assumed to be wrong 'uns. We are all assumed to be getting more money than we should be getting when, in fact, most members of parliament are honourable members and we aren't on the fiddle."