Salmond rejects call to open his diaries

Published on Saturday 20 June 2009 20:00

ALEX Salmond is continuing to reject calls for him to open up his diaries, amid evidence he claimed for food costs at Westminster two years ago despite rarely attending the Commons.

The First Minister, who is still an MP, claimed the full 400-a-month allowance permissible to MPs during the first four months of 2007, when he was leading the SNP's successful election campaign.

His spokesman acknowledged last week that, for one of the months claimed for, April, Salmond had not been in London once. He said the claim in April had actually been made for the previous month. But analysis shows that, in January, February and March of 2007, Salmond voted at the Commons on just eight days.

Scots Conservative leader Annabel Goldie last night repeated her call for the First Minister to publish all his diaries for the past four years to prove he was in London when claiming the allowance.

Last month, it emerged that the First Minister had claimed the full 400 allowance in the summer of 2005, when the parliament was not even sitting. After becoming First Minister in May 2007, he voted on just six days at the Commons, but still claimed 1,391 on food.

A Tory spokesman said: "Alex Salmond is on record as saying that during 2007/08 he was in London for around 30 days – and he also said the correct figure for the food allowance was 1,391.50, which equates to 40 per day."

However, the SNP say that all Salmond's claims will be placed before an independent panel being set up to assess all MPs' expenses. Salmond's spokesperson said: "Alex and all SNP MPs are in a very strong position in going before the independent audit. Indeed, Alex has pressed for the audit to be conducted in early course, and it should now be done during August and September. No SNP MP has ever flipped a house, claimed for moats, duck islands, chandeliers, phantom mortgages, or engaged in any of the other shenanigans to have emanated from Westminster."