THE south's MPs have defended their annual claims of thousands of pounds for “second homes” – insisting they need them to do their job properly in Westminster and their constituencies.

Figures published by Parliamentary authorities show the region’s 13 MPs together claimed £250,000 on top of their basic salaries in the last year.

The claims, for 2006/7, relate to the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA), which was designed – as some MPs admit – to give politicians a pay rise by the back door after upfront salary hikes were deemed too politically risky.

However, if MPs hoped the ACA would lessen public criticism of their cost to the taxpayer they were sorely mistaken. If anything it has focused the media spotlight on the perceived perks of office, and provided a seemingly endless source of stories about MPs failing to abide by the spirit of the rules, if not the rules themselves.

Last month, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith became the latest in a long line of MPs to have questions raised about her living arrangements.

The revelation that Smith had designated her sister’s house in London, where she stayed during the week, as her main residence in order to claim a Parliamentary allowance for her constituency home, prompted an investigation by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog.

The ACA – worth a maximum of £22,110 in 2006/7 – was back in the news again last week when it was suggested that New Forest East MP Julian Lewis’s £21,984 claim for the costs of keeping a second home in London were eroding public confidence in Parliament.

Dr Lewis did not help his case when he told the Daily Echo he had switched the home on which he claimed the allowance from his less expensive house in Totton, on which he has no mortgage, to his pricey London address, for “economic reasons”.

Even so, there appears to be little in Dr Lewis’s case that sets him aside from hundreds of other MPs who routinely claim ACA on London properties to help them carry out their Parliamentary duties.

The fact that his situation was highlighted by a tabloid newspaper – which admitted there was no suggestion the Tory MP broke any rules – appeared to owe more to his decision to champion the right of MPs to keep their home addresses secret rather than any transgression related to his allowances.

The Green Book, which sets out the rules governing MPs’ allowances, tells claimants the ACA may be used to pay for rent, interest on mortgage payments, cleaning, maintenance, furniture, insurance and utilities on their second home.

It adds: “You must ensure that arrangements for your ACA claims are above reproach and that there can be no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money.”

But there is little agreement as to what represents “misuse”.

As for which address an MP should nominate as their main home – and fund out of their salary – and for which they should use the ACA, it simply states: “The location of your main home will normally be a matter of fact. If you have more than one home, your main home will normally be the one where you spend more nights than any other.”

With many MPs dividing their time roughly evenly between the capital and their constituency, these judgements are also open to dispute.

Mr Lewis insisted that since he split his time between his Totton home and his London address he was entitled to claim the allowance on whichever property he wanted.

A Daily Echo survey found most MPs in the south do the same as Mr Lewis and choose to designate their constituency home as their “main home”, and claim ACA to cover the costs of a flat in London for use during the week. Other MPs who do this include Southampton MPs John Denham and Alan Whitehead and Romsey MP Sandra Gidley.

However, Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne, the Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesman, does the opposite – and in doing so notably claimed the lowest amount of ACA (£9,759) of any MP in the region in 2006/7.

He said: “If MPs are spending public money it’s right and proper they should be scrutinised for it.

But I don’t really have any strong views as to the best way of doing it.

“I decided early on I would claim for the home [that would cost] less because I didn’t want any fuss about it.”

Alan Whitehead, Labour MP for Southampton Test, said he claimed ACA for the mortgage interest on a “small flat” in London, and said the ACA worked well enough provided MPs were not exploiting the system to get an “economic advantage”

out of their arrangements.

He said: “We do need somewhere to live in London. What we have, I personally think, should be reasonably modest and we should claim only what it costs.”

Mr Whitehead added: “There’s a fundamental truth that MPs need somewhere to stay. The idea that MPs should hang themselves in a wardrobe isn’t tenable.”

Sandra Gidley, Lib Dem MP for Romsey, said: “The main place for most MPs should be in their constituency, although some take the decision to move their families to London.

“Over a period of time it’s been politically unacceptable to raise MPs’ salaries, so allowances have been raised. It was a back-door trade-off over the years, but the problem is I personally would not be able to do the job the way I do without the allowance.”

Scrapping the ACA and raising MPs’ salaries would result in London MPs who did not need anywhere else to stay getting a higher income, which would be unfair on the rest, she said.

However, Mrs Gidley still believes there is scope to improve the current set-up. “The rules around second homes need to be much tighter and there should be clear criteria for what is your main home.”

As for Dr Lewis, his experiences have also led him to the view that the system needs changing.

He said: “We have a flawed allowance system, but it is the only one we have and I would like to see it reformed so MPs are not put in an insidious position.”

Next month the ACA is to be rebranded Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure (PAAE), but other than “more rigorous”

audits of MPs’ claims, the basic rules will remain the same.

A spokesman for Commons Leader Harriet Harman told the Daily Echo the system was being “kept under review”.