MPs' expenses: Alex Salmond

Parliament has published the details of MPs' expenses. The documents, which have chunks blacked out to hide addresses and other sensitive information, cover financial years from 2004 to 2008 and have been released in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

Details of individual MPs expenses were initially published by the Daily Telegraph. Where it made claims about individual MPs they have been reflected in these pages - as have MPs' responses to those claims.

Scottish National Party MP for Banff & Buchan

Standing down at next election

2007-08 Total expenses	£139,233
of which second home allowance	£14,130

CLAIMS AND RESPONSES

Claim: Scotland's first minister voted on only six days in the Commons in the financial year 2007/8 yet claimed £1,751.50 for food - over a third of the maximum permitted annual amount, the Sunday Telegraph said.

Mr Salmond, who is MP for Banff and Buchan as well as MSP for Gordon, also claimed £800 for August and September 2005, when Parliament was in recess, the paper added. It said he claimed £3,200, the maximum food allowance, for eight months in 2005/6. In the same year he received £54.75 for towels, £540 for bed linen, £650.40 in curtains and £1,093 for a bed. Authorities also docked £9 from his claim for a stay at a hotel in London in July 2005 because he had included drinks from hotel room mini bar.

Response: Mr Salmond said his overall claims were £9,000 below the limit of the Additional Cost Allowance. He said he had furnished a rented flat in London in 2005 with a "job lot" of used furniture at a cost of just over £2,000, "which must be a record low figure for the House of Commons". The £9 drinks were deducted from his reimbursement because, even though they were non-alcoholic, they were not specified as such, Mr Salmond added. He said he had placed his expenses for the financial year 2007/8 on the Scottish National Party's website and would do so with the 2008/9 data as soon as it was available. Mr Salmond said that, during 2007/08, he was in London for around 30 days - and said the correct figure for the food allowance was £1,391.50, which equated to £40 per day. He added that he still had a rented flat in London for the first nine months of the year. In terms of 2005/06, Mr Salmond said MPs still went to London during recess, and pointed out that bills incurred during the parliamentary session, such as Commons dining facilities, often fell during that period.

RECEIPTS

The links below will take you to the original documents on Parliament's website. As the links have been automatically generated it is possible a small percentage of them may not work.

Incidental Expenses Provision/Staff Allowance 2007-08(PDF)
Additional Cost Allowance 2007-08(PDF)
Communication Allowance 2007-08(PDF)
Incidental Expenses Provision/Staff Allowance 2006-07(PDF)
Additional Cost Allowance 2006-07(PDF)
Incidental Expenses Provision/Staff Allowance 2005-06(PDF)
Additional Cost Allowance 2005-06(PDF)
Incidental Expenses Provision/Staff Allowance 2004-05(PDF)
Additional Cost Allowance 2004-05(PDF)

Hundreds of pages of receipts have been published for each MP. If you see anything interesting, or if any of the links above are broken please tell us here. This is what you've spotted so far.