Leominster MP Bill Wiggin has just released the following statement to the Hereford Times following on from the Daily Telegraph's front page story about his expenses.

"I have not claimed a phantom mortgage. I have a real mortgage on my London second home.

I have always claimed the mortgage interest on this house and have submitted my mortgage statement with my claim.

The Mortgage statement makes it clear that I have a London mortgage and how much it is and how much interest I pay.

I also submitted an internal form. My mistake was to put the wrong address on the internal form.

I have claimed the interest that I paid exactly and the statements and the forms all match.

Yes I made a mistake by putting the wrong address on my internal forms and that is my fault.

But it is not true that I have claimed public money on a mortgage that does not exist. It exists and I still pay it.

I do not wish to be grouped with MPs who have claimed for mortgages which do not exist. As soon as I was told that I had been filling the forms out wrong I stopped and did them correctly.

It would have been helpful if the mistake I made on my internal forms had been pointed out to me earlier but because a mortgage statement was also submitted it is possible that nobody noticed.

I am committed to openness and support David Cameron's lead on sorting this out.

I have not claimed any money that I should not have but regret that I wrote down the wrong details on the internal form.

I shall still be holding my public meeting in Leominster at 4pm next Wednesday so that people can talk about this and I can answer their questions."