Julie Kirkbride's brother buys gadgets and they appear on her expenses

Julie Kirkbride, MP for Bromsgrove

The equipment, which included a digital camera, was bought by Ian Kirkbride, and delivered to him at the MP’s publicly funded “second home”, where he has lived rent-free for five years.

Miss Kirkbride, 48, then put the receipts through her office expenses account, and successfully claimed the money back. During the same period, she separately claimed £220 for another digital camera for her office.

The disclosures will add to the pressure on Miss Kirk­bride, whose husband, Andrew MacKay, was forced to announce on Saturday that he would stand down from parliament over anger at the couple’s use of expenses.

Mr Kirkbride, 59, bought a digital camera, five memory cards, four internet routers, three external hard drives, a computer printer, map software and a battery. The items, which totalled £1,000.52, were delivered to him at Miss Kirkbride’s Redditch flat between March 2005 and October 2007.

He works as an IT consultant from the property, which is near Miss Kirkbride’s Bromsgrove constituency. She claims he also lives there to help care for her eight-year-old son, Angus. Asked yesterday why she needed the cameras, Miss Kirkbride said: “I record my work as an MP in pictures.

“I often ask my brother to source IT equipment for me … These items were bought by my brother, on my instructions,” she said.

Miss Kirkbride has bought several other electrical items in her own name in the past four  years. She bought another internet router for herself in June last year and had it delivered to her property in West­minster. She also pays for a “home office” internet service for her London flat.

In December 2005, she claimed £50 from her office expenses to pay for 200 correspondence cards bought by her brother. Miss Kirkbride said yesterday that the cards had been produced for her.

She claimed £500 for a television in 2005, and then tried to claim £765 for an LCD television in February 2008. But after discussions with officials, they agreed it should be paid for from her second home expenses.

Between March and May 2005, she also claimed £1,000 for two photo shoots and prints. She then claimed £1,020 for another photo shoot in October 2006.

The disclosures come after Mr MacKay announced on Saturday that he would stand down as MP for Bracknell at the next election.

He was pushed to make the announcement by David Cameron, the Tory leader, after constituents expressed their anger over the couple’s use of expenses. Over the past eight years, they have claimed almost £250,000 in second home expenses by designating two different properties as their “second home”.

Miss Kirkbride designated the couple’s Westminster home as her main address and claimed expenses on the property in Redditch, where her brother lived. Meanwhile, Mr MacKay claimed second home expenses for the property in London.