Cameron to repay wrongly claimed expenses

David Cameron is to repay almost £1,000 he wrongly claimed on Parliamentary expenses after reviewing his claims over recent weeks.

The Tory leader had already announced his intention to pay back £680 he claimed towards repairs at his second home in Oxfordshire.

But today he wrote to the Commons Fees Office volunteering the repayment of £947.29 - including the £680 for repairs - after identifying a series of over-claims.

Today, Mr Cameron was sending a cheque enclosed in a letter to Terry Bird, the Commons' director of operations.

"Over the last few weeks, I have carefully gone through the claims I have made against the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) since 2004," he wrote.

"This has brought to light a number of points. I would like to make clear that these were discovered as a result of a thorough review by my office, not as a result of media inquiries."

The additional amounts for which he is reimbursing the Fees Office include:

* £218.91 in mortgage over-claims resulting from "an inadvertent administrative error" arising from changes to his home loan arrangements;

* £9 he was over-compensated for on an electricity and gas bill;

* £10 too much he received for a researcher's phone bill;

* £29.38 he claimed towards a banner on his website he was subsequently asked by the Commons to take down.

Mr Cameron has previously announced that he would be paying back a maintenance bill of £680 for household repairs to his constituency home.

The work included clearing wisteria and vines from a chimney, replacing outside lights and resealing his conservatory roof, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The odd jobs included repairing cisterns, washers and a leaky washing machine.

"On reflection, I would like to repay this bill, even though it was entirely legitimate under the ACA," Mr Cameron wrote today.