AN MP is to be investigated by the Government sleaze watchdog following a complaint that he claimed £5,000 of taxpayers’ cash for his local Tory club.

Bill Wiggin is facing questions over an invoice that claimed he paid the money to the North Herefordshire Conservative Association for room hire between April 2006 and March 2007.

Constituent Jim Miller, of Leominster, referred the case to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner John Lyon and yesterday an office spokesman said: “We will be investigating.

“We don’t go into details but it does relate to costs that he claimed under the previous system.”

Mr Wiggin, who represents North Herefordshire, was unavailable for comment yesterday but the Conservative association told your Worcester News’ sister paper Ledbury Reporter last week that the expenses in question covered other parliamentary services as its secretary was acting as Mr Wiggin’s constituency secretary during that time.

“This meant that she dealt with parliamentary business as well as surgeries,” it said in a statement.

“Thus the invoice of £5,000 authorised and paid by the Parliamentary Fees Office in May 2007 covered the whole cost to the association of parliamentary business as well as organising surgeries for Mr Wiggin during that 12 months.

“This covered the secretary’s time, telephone, postage, printing and related costs, not just room hire for the various venues.

“Surgeries took place approximately every fortnight in various venues around the constituency which included Tenbury Wells, Ledbury, Bromyard, Kington and villages, as well as Leominster itself.”

It is not the first time Mr Wiggins’ expenses claims have been called into question.

He was forced to repay more than £4,000 last October after the watchdog found he claimed expenses he had not incurred.