JAMES Gray has dismissed claims by political blogger Guido Fawkes that he is making double claims for the rent of his constituency accommodation and constituency office .

The North Wiltshire MP says the allegations are nonsense and that although he claims expenses for his second home in Wiltshire and his office in a separate outbuilding at the same address, they were rented under separate agreements.

Fawkes, whose real name is Paul Staines, claims Mr Gray lists the Chippenham office of the Conservative Association as his office but claims expenses for one at his Ganbrook Farm home near Atworth – a practice Fawkes describes as doubling up and one which formed part of the investigation into MP Denis MacShane’s expenses fraud.

However backbencher Mr Gray insists his office and his home are entirely separate and simply next door to each other and that the arrangements have been cleared by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.