Would-be Speaker Sir Alan Beith and his wife claimed £177,000

The former Liberal Democrat deputy leader, who is his party's longest-serving MP, married his second wife, the former Lib Dem MP for Christchurch, in 2001

Sir Alan, the Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, bills the taxpayer for rent, food and cleaning at his flat in the Dolphin Square complex near Westminster. At the same time, Lady Maddock has claimed an average of £10,000 per year in “overnight” allowances.

Couples who both claim parliamentary expenses have now been told that only one of them can submit second homes claims, under a raft of interim rule changes announced by the outgoing Speaker, Michael Martin, this week.

The Beiths insisted yesterday that they had stayed within the letter and the spirit of the rules by claiming less than the maximum allowable sum.

Lady Maddock said she only ever claimed half of what she was entitled to, while Sir Alan claimed only half the couple’s rent, although his overall second homes claims amount to far more than 50 per cent of the limit.

Sir Alan also claimed £6,298 for food between 2005 and 2008 and £5,050 for a cleaner in the same period, as well as recovering £5,457 from the public purse for a John Lewis kitchen and £219 for an air conditioning unit.

Having declared himself as a candidate for the Speaker’s chair this week, saying he was “willing to take on the task of leading reform”, Sir Alan was installed as 6-1 second favourite to win next month’s secret ballot of MPs.

The former Liberal Democrat deputy leader, who is his party’s longest-serving MP, married his second wife, the former Lib Dem MP for Christchurch, in 2001. Since then they have rented their London flat, which Sir Alan has designated as his second home. Between 2001 and 2008, Sir Alan, 66, claimed a total of £117,750 in second home allowances.

In 2006-07 he claimed the maximum allowable amount of £22,110, which included the cost of the new kitchen from John Lewis.

In the same year, Lady Maddock claimed £8,560 for “overnight subsistence” on her House of Lords expenses, as well as claiming £9,005 in daily attendance allowances. In total, Lady Maddock claimed £60,002 in overnight allowances between 2001 and 2008, meaning the couple claimed £177,752 between them.

Lady Maddock insisted that she and her husband had done everything possible to ensure they stayed within the spirit of the rules on expenses.

She said: “We have tried to claim half and half. I have always claimed half of what I could claim for and Alan only claims for half the rent. It isn’t an exact science.

“We tried to solve the rent issue by claiming for half in a system that isn’t perfect.

“We could have sat down and we could have worked out the half much more accurately perhaps, but we did our best.

“We have always been in favour of everything being out in the open.”

Sir Alan, who was knighted last year, has chaired several

parliamentary committees and made an unsuccessful bid for the leadership of his party in 1988, when he was beaten by Paddy Ashdown.

As well as his parliamentary salary of £64,766 he earns between £15,000 and £20,000 as a consultant to the Bourne Leisure Group, which operates holiday parks.

Sir Alan said he had always “sought value for money” in his expenditure but would pay back money if it was deemed inappropriate by “external scrutiny”.

Sir Alan Beith

Job: backbench

Lib Dem MP

Salary: £64,766

Total second home claims

2004-05: £12,595

2005-06: £15,674

2006-07: £22,110

2007-08: £17,686