DARWEN and Rossendale MP Janet Anderson has angrily hit back at reports she admitted to wrongly overclaiming more than £6,000 in petty cash.

The Daily Telegraph made the claims in its coverage of the expenses scandal on Saturday, but Mrs Anderson has issued a denial.

The newspaper said it had seen documents which showed that the Labour MP has claimed double the permitted £250-a-month allocation on 25 occasions since April 2004.

She said: “I have not admitted to claiming too much petty cash.

“It has been approved and paid and I was not aware that anything was wrong.”

Mrs Anderson said: “I use the money to pay for things like newspapers and tea and coffee for my three offices.

"I have one in Darwen, one in Rossendale, and one in the House of Parliament.

“When you work it out as an average across the three offices, it works out at something like £100 each, which I don’t think is unreasonable at all.

“I also had a student doing work experience with me last week and I gave him £50 to cover his fares and his lunches.

“Nobody has suggested that I have done anything wrong and because of that I haven’t thought about paying any of the money back.”

Mrs Anderson said that new petty cash allowances to be brought in next month would mean cutbacks.

She said: “We are all having to cut back because we will only be allowed £50 a month from July 1 and we will have to have a receipt for everything.

“I think that will mean an awful lot of paperwork, but because of the public’s demand for transparency there is no option and I will be happy to do it.”

The newspaper went onto claim that Mrs Anderson had paid back £613.38 in overclaimied expenses.

It also said Hyndburn MP Greg Pope had paid back £1,331 for overclaiming on a service charge and council tax, while Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans had repaid £566 in mobile phone and legal fees.