Expenses row engulfs Salmond

ALEX Salmond was last night attempting to extricate himself from the Westminster expenses scandal after it emerged that he had claimed £800 for food when the House of Commons was not sitting and was reimbursed for £1,633 he spent on a bed and linen.

The First Minister was forced to set out a detailed defence of his expenses after his claims were made public during the embarrassing row that has engulfed Cabinet members and other leading politicians at Westminster.

Public outrage over claims that politicians have their noses in a tax-free trough has been provoked by a series of revelations disclosing that ministers have claimed thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on shopping sprees, security patrols and mortgages.

Salmond, who is the only MSP to also sit as an MP, was dragged into the controversy when examination of his receipts revealed that he was reimbursed 54.75 for towels, 540 for bed linen, 1,093 for a bed and bedding and 650.40 for curtains in 2005-6.

Embarrassingly, Salmond also claimed 800 for food in August and September 2005 even though Westminster was in recess at the time.

"Well, he was probably hungry" said Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP for Edinburgh. But she added: "The whole lot of them (MPs] really disgust and upset me. This whole thing undermines politics and politicians in general.

"It is almost inevitable that he has been dragged into this. All the parties are going to get embarrassing things found about them. It is beyond description."

Last night, one opinion poll showed that more than two- thirds of the public believe the scandals have directly hurt Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister.

Another poll revealed that 89 per cent of people believed that the reputation of parliament had been tarnished.

Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "There is no reason why the taxpayer should pick up the bill for Salmond's groceries whether he is in London or in his constituency. I think a lot of his constituents will expect him to pay some of this back. Failing that, there had better be a good explanation as to why the taxpayer should pay the bill."

Yesterday, Salmond tried to distance himself from the row by insisting that he had not broken any parliamentary rules and issued a detailed breakdown of his expenses claims.

The First Minister said the food claims were "entirely in accordance" with the rules of the "Green Book", the Commons' guide to members' allowances.

MPs can claim a maximum of 400 per month for food without having to produce receipts.

Salmond's spokesman said that MPs could go down to London during the break and are allowed to pursue claims for food during the recess. For 2005-6, Salmond claimed the maximum food allowance of 3,200.

In 2007-08, he took up his position as Scottish First Minister. Although he only voted on six days in the Commons, he still managed to claim 1,391.50 on food plus 360 on utility bills and cleaning.

In relation to the expenses claimed for a bed, curtains and bedding, Salmond said he was kitting out a rented property with a "second-hand job lot".

Salmond said: "I was furnishing a totally empty flat in London which was done in total for just over 2,000. The items claimed were in accordance with the Green Book."

At the time, Salmond was renting a flat in Pimlico. In December 2007 he said he "relinquished the lease on my rented flat at Dolphin Square as it was no longer proving a cost-effective use of public funds".

Salmond joined the chorus of Scottish politicians who believe that the Westminster expenses system would be less open to abuse if it followed the example of the Scottish Parliament and published claims every three months instead of every financial year.

"It is clear that, with the total mess Westminster finds itself in, the House of Commons should now follow the Scottish Parliament in publishing all expense figures for all MPs on a quarterly basis," Salmond said.

"This move to transparency is actually more important than the precise system of allowances the House of Commons chooses to adopt. When everything is finally published on a quarterly basis it will stop abuses and end the media frenzy around disclosure."

Salmond's Westminster expenses are in addition to the 80,224 salary he draws as First Minister plus the 64,766 that he earns as an MP.

Because he sits at both Westminster and Holyrood, he can only take one third of his 56,671 MSP's salary. He donates this money to a trust to help community groups near his two constituencies.

Commons expenses have proved problematic to first ministers in the past. One of Salmond's Labour predecessors, Henry McLeish, resigned from the top job after a mix-up over his office allowances.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police was last night still considering whether it would investigate the leak that led to the publication of MPs' expenses.

The decision by the Commons' authorities to contact the police was criticised for deflecting attention from the expenses disclosures.

The police were called in when Malcolm Jack, the Clerk of the Commons, contacted Scotland Yard saying he believed there were "reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence may have been committed".