LABOUR MP Andrew Gwynne faced the threat of eviction from his constituency office in Denton because of late payment of a bill.

The Denton and Reddish MP, elected in 2005, received a warning notice from Tameside council and also feared his phones would be cut off.

It happened because Commons officials were slow to make direct payment of bills he owed. The Parliamentary Private Secretary to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith made various claims for items related to his second home, a one-bed London flat. They ranged from £1,032 to carpet the entire property to £2.49 for a rubber bath mat from Argos. Mr Gwynne, 34, is married with three young children who live with his wife in their main family home in Denton.

Although many MPs use department store John Lewis as a benchmark for their expenditure, he restricted himself to the likes of Argos, Asda and Tesco. "I've always felt this is public money and I think I have an obligation to the taxpayer and to my electorate to not make extravagant claims. I've got nothing in my flat that I would not pay for out of my own pocket for my own home. And from the kind of retailers that I would use for my own home."

Mr Gwynne told the M.E.N. that he shared the public's anger about the way a number of MPs had behaved: "I'm angry too when I look at some of the revelations that have come out over the last fortnight. It's clear that there have been some real abuses of the system. It does surprise me, some of the claims that have been made.

"But we've also reached the phase were everybody is being questioned, even about quite reasonable claims that were made within the context of the allowance and what that allowance was for."