EPPING Forest MP Eleanor Laing has offered to pay back £25,000 after avoiding a £180,000 tax bill by telling the taxman one thing, and the Parliamentary Fees Office another.

MPs are only allowed to claim expenses on their second homes, and Mrs Laing claimed tens of thousands of pounds for a flat in Westminster which she told the House of Commons was her second home.

But when she came to sell it for £1.8 million in August last year, she avoided a £180,000 capital gains tax bill by telling HM Revenue and Customs that it was her first home.

According to the Daily Telegraph, which has been publishing leaked details of MPs’ expenses for three weeks, no MP has avoided more capital gains tax by this method than Mrs Laing.

When asked about Mrs Laing on Sunday, Conservative leader David Cameron criticised her avoidance of the tax and warned that MPs found to have behaved inappropriately would be removed from the front bench.

The revelations have prompted outrage across the Epping Forest constituency, and calls for her to step down.

An online petition to ‘sack Eleanor Laing’ has been set up and quotes anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell as saying: “My own view, as one who takes an interest in these things, is that her constituents are entitled to a better explanation. Or else if she seeks re-election they might consider finding someone in the local community to stand against her as an independent.”

At St John’s School in Buckhurst Hill, which has recently gone through a rigorous financial audit, headteacher Peter Tidmarsh said: “Having been put through the hoop by this over-regulating Government I am both bemused and infuriated by the lack of integrity many MPs have displayed in their own financial management.

“I would welcome the opportunity to compile an audit for MPs including our very own and rather absent Mrs Laing.”

Mrs Laing, who last July was one of just 21 Conservative MPs who voted against a proposed reform of the MPs allowance system, has written an open letter to her constituents since the latest revelations, but has not yet organised a public meeting of constituency party members, as demanded by Mr Cameron.

Constituency chairman Matthew Colling said: “She’s writing to them all at the moment so I don’t think that will be necessary. Hopefully we can sort this out between us and inform members of what’s happening.”

Despite making a £1 million profit on the sale of her flat, Mrs Laing said she was arranging a bank loan to raise the £25,000.

She added: “I could explain in detail the legal position and why I have broken no rules, but I fully appreciate that people are fed up with that approach. I care far more about integrity than about money. I am uncomfortable with the thought that I may have used taxpayers’ money in a way that is questionable.”

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