Christopher Fraser says that claim for trees was necessary

Christopher Fraser feeds his pigs Napoleon, Clarissa and Henrietta as his goats, Horace and Jasper, look on.

Mr Fraser used the money to buy 140 cherry laurels and 75 red cedars for his £350,000 house in his South West Norfolk constituency, which he designates as his “second home”.

Mr Fraser also lives on a farm worth £1.2 million in Dorset, where he was an MP between 1997 and 2001, before being voted out and re-elected to the Norfolk seat four years later. He designates the farmhouse in Dorset as his “main home”, while letting out a smaller farmhouse on the same estate and the surrounding land. He also rents out another property in London. Despite neither of his designated properties being in the capital, Mr Fraser told his local newspaper last week: “For a politician outside London, a second property is a necessity, not a luxury.”

The MP made the claim for trees worth £933 and fencing worth £875 in February, 2007. It was initially challenged by the Commons fees office. An official approved the claim after speaking to the MP over the phone. “This is a property without any natural boundaries,” the official wrote in an email. “Mr Fraser felt that in order to provide security and privacy, fences and hedges were required.” Mr Fraser said yesterday that the fees office had agreed the measures were “a necessity”.

“There were occasions when I found people and dogs in the garden,” he said.

Between being elected in May, 2005, and October, 2006, he rented another farmhouse in the constituency for £1,200 a month, the cost of which he claimed back on expenses.

He also claimed £240 for a lawnmower and £70 for the emptying of his “sceptic (sic) tank”. He said: “I purchased the cheapest lawnmower that I could find, and cut the grass myself to save costs.”

Mr Fraser then bought his current “second home”, and made an emergency claim. Officials noted that he “needs money urgently”.

He began claiming £1,573 a month for the interest on his new mortgage, along with the house’s £518 fuel oil bill, £128 a month council tax bill and other charges.

Among other claims in 2007 was another £80 for “sceptic tank emptying”.

Mr Fraser said: “I have been conscious whenever claiming that my costs must be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purposes of my parliamentary duties.”

Christopher Fraser

Job: Conservative MP for South West Norfolk

Salary: £64,766

Total second home claims:

2005-06: £21,634

2006-07: £22,111

2007-08: £23,022