Speaker under new pressure over £1.7m home improvements

Beleagured: Speaker Michael Martin's official spending has caused anger.

Commons Speaker Michael Martin faced a mounting chorus of demands last night to come clean over how £1.7million was spent on refurbishing his Commons residence since he took up the job.

Westminster insiders privately predicted that the "staggering" scale of the expenditure – disclosed by the Commons authorities only after a Freedom of Information request – could be the final straw for his beleaguered position.

Only last week, the Speaker provoked a barrage of criticism after defying an FoI ruling by launching a legal challenge to prevent full details of MPs' second-home allowances being published.

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