Times offered one million MP receipts for £300,000

From tomorrow's issue of The Times:

A businessman offered to sell the details of every expense claim made by MPs over the past five years to The Times for £300,000. Similar approaches have also been made to other national newspapers.

He said that scans of a million receipts claimed as part of MPs’ £24,000 second-home allowance had been “inadvertently” duplicated by the parliamentary authorities.

The businessman, whose company is based in the City, said that he was offering the politically sensitive information because he believed that it was in the public interest. When he made clear that he was expecting money, The Times turned down the offer.