Charles Hendry used public cash to pay for two servants

Charles Hendry: Mr Hendry is the second senior Conservative found to have claimed public money to pay for domestic staff.

Charles Hendry, the shadow energy and climate change minister, used the money to pay for two servants at his £750,000 farm house in East Sussex over three years.

Mr Hendry, the MP for Wealdon, also owns a £2.56 million town house in Westminster.

Mr Hendry is the second senior Conservative found to have claimed public money to pay for domestic staff. Sir John Butterfill, the MP for Bournemouth West, claimed £17,000 for servants' quarters at his second home.

A contract drawn up by Mr Hendry and submitted to the Commons fees office in September 2004 shows that the staff, a husband and wife, were paid to clean, iron clothes and provide "general support in the garden".

They were paid £737 a month for their work at the farm house, for which Mr Hendry has claimed almost £90,000 in second home expenses over the past four years.

Mr Hendry bought the house in 2000 with his wife, Sallie, for £750,000. He designates it as his "second home" for expenses purposes.

His "main home" is a house in a street in Westminster, which the couple bought in 2002 for £2.56 million, without a mortgage.

They live there with their two children and have since taken out a mortgage on it.

Mr Hendry has also in the past paid his wife to work for him out of public funds.

Among other expenses claims made for his second home, Mr Hendry claimed about £350 in 2004 for pest control services, following infestations of mice, wasps and flies in the property's roof.

Two years later, the MP claimed £75 for the collection of a sample and an analysis by an independent testing laboratory.

Mr Hendry has said the test was for suspected asbestos. "Had it been asbestos, we may have had to leave the property," he said.

In May 2004, Mr Hendry successfully claimed £376 for security work, including the servicing of the farm's CCTV system, despite the bill showing that the work was completed and paid for in September 2003.

The MP has said it was a "legitimate claim" that had not been reimbursed at the time. During the same year, he claimed £380 for electrical work, including some for the room containing his piano.

Mr Hendry said on Monday night the work was on "a plug socket adjacent to the piano... not piano lighting".

Since then Mr Hendry has claimed £1,260 a month for interest on the mortgage of the farm house.

He also claimed hundreds of pounds a month for various other bills, including council tax, water and electricity.

In March 2007, he claimed £1,300 for the installation of a new oil tank and the digging of a trench for the pipe. He also claimed regular £500 bills for fuel oil and £90 a month for window cleaning.

Mr Hendry designates a room in the farm house as an office, which allows him to claim half his home phone and fax bill back on his office expenses.

Mr Hendry has defended the claims for staff.

"I have claimed for some of the costs for that help which was necessary and which related to the house, not the garden," he said.

"I have help in the home and in the garden at my constituency home. I have not claimed for the full cost of this as it seemed proper that I should bear most of these costs personally," he added.