SLEAFORD and North Hykeham MP Douglas Hogg has been hitting national headlines once again with recent claims MPs need a minimum salary of £100,000 a year.

Mr Hogg, whose expenses claims famously included a bill for "moat cleaning" at his estate, said the basic pay packet should be boosted to £100,000 plus expenses of about £20,000 a year.

And the former agriculture minister said the current salary of just under £65,000 was "so low in both absolute and relative terms as to deter members of professional and business classes from entering Parliament.

"A Parliamentary salary does not support the lifestyle to which professional and business classes aspire," he said in evidence to the committee charged with overhauling the expenses system.

He added: "In order not to deter the professional and business classes from coming into the Commons, MPs should be paid a salary of around £100,000 together with appropriate expenses."

In his evidence to the committee, written at the end of June, Mr Hogg suggested replacing the controversial expenses system with an annual allowance of between £20,000 and £23,000 to pay for MPs' second homes.

He added he "would not want to see undue demand for receipts, as we would get into the sort of problems we have experiences over the last few months."

But his political party was quick to distance itself from the comments.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "These are the views of an individual Conservative MP.

"David Cameron has repeatedly made it clear we need to reduce the overall cost of politics."

Mr Hogg's comments came to light the week after Alan Duncan, the Tory MP who oversaw much of his party's response to the expenses row, was secretly filmed saying MPs are now living "on rations".

Mr Hogg announced his retirement from Parliament shortly after his expenses claims were made public in May.

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