'What I did was very reasonable'

Jon Sopel

The Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, spoke exclusively to the Politics Show after stories suggested he could have saved taxpayers money by paying £75,000 off his second home mortgage.

He said he believed his claims had been "reasonable" but would face his party's scrutiny panel like other Tory MPs.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Mr Cameron paid off the remaining £75,000 of a mortgage on his London home using his own money in 2001, shortly after taking out a £350,000 mortgage on his constituency home in Witney, Oxfordshire.

He refused to say if he would welcome a series of by-elections in the wake of some of his MPs deciding to stand down at the next General Election, saying it is a matter for them.

David Cameron defends his own expenses claims

He was also asked about the case of his Shadow Justice Minister, Eleanor Laing, who is reported to have avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of her taxpayer-funded second home.

Ms Laing insists she was legally obliged to name the property as her principle residence for tax purposes.

However, Mr Cameron said the practice was not acceptable and that anyone guilty of it should be expected to be punished by his internal party scrutiny panel.

"I don't think it is right to get money from the taxpayer for what you nominate as a second home and then to sell it and not pay capital gains tax," he told the programme.

Asked if Ms Laing would follow Andrew MacKay in being forced out over expense claims, he said: "Where appropriate, others will be removed from the front bench if they do not behave appropriately".

He also spoke about whether the Queen should represent Britain at the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings next week.

Mr Cameron said he was loathe to involve Her Majesty in political controversy but did say that he thought that Gordon Brown has made "a complete mess of this right from the start."

"To start with they didn't recognise the importance of the 65th anniversary of D-Day, so they have been too slow off the mark in planning what is an appropriate commemoration of what was one of the most important days in the history of Western Europe."

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