Second home for Lib Dem who was nine miles from Commons

The party's spokesman on health in the House of Lords was MP for Richmond Park until 2005 when she stepped down at the general election. Even though her constituency was just nine miles from Westminster, Lady Tonge claimed between £650 and £850 a month in mortgage interest on a flat in central London, as well as utility bills.

The peer also regularly claimed between £150 and £200 a month for food.

She no longer pays a mortgage on the £330,000 property but has rented it out since her retirement four years ago to Stephen Williams, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bristol West. He, in turn, has claimed the rent on his tax-free designated second home allowance.

Mr Williams, the shadow secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills, paid her £1,200 a month between 2005 and October 2007, when the rent increased to £1,500.

Lady Tonge, who lives in an £810,000 property in Richmond, west London, said she had bought a second home in the centre of the capital because Parliament used to sit much later in the evening.

She said: "The hours in 1997 when I became an MP were very different from now. I took a flat at Westminster because of all-night and late-night sittings. The journey to and from Westminster may not seem much in miles but it becomes much more difficult at that time of night."

Lady Tonge also defended letting her flat to another politician and said that she still owed money on the property. "In 2005 I offered my flat to one of the new MPs, I charged a rent which covered the interest on the loan but not the service charge on the flat. I have not made any profit whatsoever and I still have the overdraft that I took out to buy the flat."

Lady Tonge was replaced in her Richmond Park constituency by Susan Kramer at the last election.The peer caused a storm of protest in 2004 when she appeared to empathise with suicide bombers in Palestine. She said: "If I had to live in that situation – and I say that advisedly – I might just consider becoming one myself."

She was sacked from her post as the Liberal Democrat spokesman for children by Charles Kennedy, the party leader at the time. Lady Tonge stepped down as an MP a year after her daughter was electrocuted in an accident, saying she wanted to spend more time with her children.

SNAPSHOT

Jenny Tonge

Job: former Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park

Salary: £57,485 in 2004

Total second home claims

2004-05: £16,579

2005-06: £0

2006-07: N/A

2007-08: N/A