MP defends his £130,000 expenses (From Gazette Series)

MP defends his £130,000 expenses

STROUD MP David Drew has vigorously defended a higher than average expenses bill of nearly £130,000 last year on the grounds that he works hard on behalf of his constituents.

Figures published for the first time this month reveal that Mr Drew claimed £127,846 in expenses during 2003-04, £9,408 more than the parliamentary average of £118,437.

Together with the basic MP's salary of £57,485 his total was £185,331 compared with his parliamentary colleagues' average of £175,922.

An unrepentant Mr Drew said on Monday: "Considering my activity, it's not bad. The only thing skewed was the postage but we do an awful lot of postage. We are an active office. We get out and try and inform people.

"The more active we are the more it costs to run an office. I choose to work hard but it comes at a cost. I've spent the whole weekend working. I do 90 hours every week.

"If people think I'm just taking the money and running, they can come and do the job. It's a blooming hard job. We suffer as a family because family life is less. If were doing fairly middle-ranking jobs, we would be better off."

He claimed there had been a huge increase in workload since Labour came to power in 1997, adding: "There is an issue about how much more we can cope with."

Mr Drew ranks third of the county's six MPs in a list topped by Gloucester's Labour MP Parmjit Dhanda, who last year claimed expenses of £134, 584, which together with his salary gives a public maintenance cost of £192,069.

"I think it's not comparing like with like," said Mr Drew. "Others take less but don't do as much as we do."

Sixteen of the top 20 claimants in the first public listing of MP's expenses were Labour, led by Claire Curtis-Thomas, member for Crosby, Merseyside, on £168,889 followed by former Minister Keith Vaz on £164,265.

The 659 MPs claimed a total of £78 million in expenses last year, up nearly £21 million on 2001-02.