BOLTON West MP Ruth Kelly has hit out at claims she has pocketed thousands of pounds in expenses for luxury fixtures and fittings at her Horwich home.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday published details of Ms Kelly’s second home expenses as part of its ongoing investigation into MPs’ allowances.

It says she submitted claims for items such as a £3,600 designer sofa, a £2,355 dining room table and a £2,000 37-inch plasma television, as well as £2,500 for painting, plumbing and curtains following a flood at the house in late 2005.

But the former Transport, Communities and Education Secretary, who had already announced she was stepping down at the next General Election, said she only received a reimbursement for half of the amount and that she paid the other half out of her own pocket.

Ms Kelly said: “I agreed with the Fees Office in advance that I would buy the furniture I felt would be nice for the house and they would pay back what they felt was reasonable.

“If a claim was not fully met I accepted the judgment of the Fees Office.

“The figures are misrepresented in The Daily Telegraph and I am disappointed that they asked me to put them into context and then chose not to use that. Most of what I claimed was for re-plastering and repainting following the flood and I paid the majority of the rest of the claims.”

It has also emerged that taxpayers’ money was used to refurbish the property after the flood as Ms Kelly did not have insurance for the home, which she bought with her husband Derek Gadd in 2001 for a reported £109,000.

Her special adviser Julie Crowley said: “Ruth can’t find any record of an insurance policy that would have covered it and doesn’t seem to have claimed for a policy.”

The Daily Telegraph claimed that Ms Kelly had claimed almost £120,000 in second home allowance since 2001.

Details of claims are only available from 2004 onwards and these show that Ms Kelly received £19,287 in 2004/05, £17,472 in 2005/06, £16,089 in 2006/07 and £13,326 in 2007/08.

Details for 2001/02 to 2003/04 were obtained by the Daily Telegraph under Freedom of Information requests.

Ms Kelly added: “I am working on getting my full expenses ready to post on my website within the next week.”

Fellow MP David Crausby, who represents Bolton North East, last night signalled his support for Ms Kelly and said he also hoped to make his expenses available to The Bolton News as soon as possible.

He said: “I am pleased that Ruth has what seems to be a reasonable explanation.

“The Telegraph has clearly gone to great lengths to get hold of this information and they are milking it for all it is worth. I think that chequebook journalism like this doesn’t always produce quality journalism.

“They have exposed some misdemeanours so should be congratulated for that but they have also scandalised some people and that doesn’t seem right.”

The Conservative leader of Bolton Council, Cllr John Walsh, has challenged the borough’s three MPs to call public meetings to defend their expenses claims to constituents. He also backed calls for a General Election and revealed local Tories will be distributing 40,000 specially printed petition cards for people to sign and return to the party’s headquarters, urging Gordon Brown to call an election.