MPs stand accused of "back door" political funding after it emerged they have claimed more than £3.6 million in expenses to rent offices from their parties.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) has launched a probe after new figures indicated that the taxpayer's bill has been inflated by around £180,000 since the general election.
The row erupted when the watchdog published details of the landlords supplying politicians' office space for the first time.
Some 244 leases were made from a political party between May 2010 and March this year, compared with 477 from other bodies or individuals.
Cabinet members including Nick Clegg, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove were among those engaging in the practice.
Although there is no suggestion rules have been broken, the average cost of renting from parties was higher - £14,886 as opposed to £14,156 from elsewhere.
If the average cost had been the same as for other landlords, the taxpayer would have saved £178,120 over the past three years.
Ipsa chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said: "Our rules allow MPs to rent from a political party - but we require an extra assurance from MPs if they do so: an independent valuation that the lease represents the market rate. We are confident that this measure means taxpayers have received value for money from these leases.
"As part of a broad review of accommodation support, Ipsa will consider whether, even if the individual leases are appropriate, the cumulative effect means we need to reconsider this aspect of the rules."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article