My family home is in Castleford with Ed and my children but I do need to be in London when Parliament is sitting. We believe strongly that the family needs to stay together during the week, so as a result, we all make the 300 mile round trip between Castleford and London each week.

Currently I claim around half of the allowance – putting me 528th out of 645 MPs last year. As MPs, Ed and I are each able to use up to the full allowance, however we have chosen to reduce our claims, to only claim around half the allowance in recent years, and to claim less than the total cost of maintaining a second home. We submit our claims jointly and split them 50/50 - and we have never used the allowances to buy furniture or similar household items. Although there are of course additional costs of things like furniture, washing machine and essential items for the children that are needed in a second home, we have always chosen to pay for those ourselves.

Before the last election different rules were in place and all Ministers were required to list London as their main home regardless of their personal circumstances. After the rules changed and following advice from the Fees Office, I used the second home allowance to pay for the bills in London, in line with Ed’s arrangements and the reality of our lives.

When we moved house in London in 2007 we paid the full capital gains tax. The report from the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards makes clear that we did not benefit financially from the change in arrangements, and says instead that it would "have been substantially to their financial advantage to treat London as their main home."

The receipts for 2004/5- 2007/8 are published on the House of Commons website.

In addition in 2008/9 I used just under half the allowance to pay for £9,650 in mortgage interest, £632 for utilities, £945 for council tax and £613 for insurance. As part of my usual practice of ensuring my annual claims at the end of the financial year were fully accurate, I requested a final mortgage statement from my mortgage company, as mortgage interest rates had been changing over successive months. Over the course of this year, the statement showed that my mortgage rates had dropped. I therefore sent in a reconciliation payment to the House of Commons for £1,350 to correct this.