I was very interested to read your report on the Oxfordshire MPs’ expenses for the past year (All the expenses your MP claimed, Oxford Mail, June 8), and to note what an improvement we have in the expenses of the new MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Nicola Blackwood.

I came across your report MPs’ expenses revealed (April 2, 2009), which stated that the previous incumbent, Evan Harris, claimed £23,081 for accommodation (“£2 shy of the maximum”) as against Nicola Blackwood’s £8,657.64.

In addition, you say Nicola Blackwood claimed a total of £19,516.12 for the past year as opposed to Evan Harris’s claim of £160,923 for the previous year (your figures).

As you wrote, this was “the largest claim of all the Oxfordshire MPs in that year”.

This is an astonishing differential.

I suppose we should be grateful that we did not have AV. Look how expensive that could have been.

ELIZABETH HOWARD Walton Well Road Oxford