Equalities Minister Helen Grant has defended claiming the maximum expenses for a second home in London despite living 19 miles from the Commons.
Mrs Grant lives in a £1.8m house near her Maidstone constituency and has a taxpayer-funded flat in London.
As a non-London MP, she is entitled to a second-home allowance.
But if she represented the area where she lives, Reigate, Surrey, she would not be able to claim the allowance, a Channel 4 documentary will say later.
Crispin Blunt, the MP for Reigate, is not entitled to claim a second-home allowance.
'Responsibility'A spokeswoman for Mrs Grant, whose taxpayer-funded flat is on the south bank of the Thames, close to the MI6 building, said she had acted within both the sprit and the letter of the rules.
"Mrs Grant's constituency has been deemed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority [Ipsa] to be a non-London constituency and she is therefore fully entitled to use her rental accommodation allowance either in London or in the constituency."
As well as her house in Reigate, Mrs Grant had a base nearer her constituency, at her mother's property, where her son also lived, "so she sees no need to rent a further property there," added the spokeswoman.
"The focus of her time and responsibility has always been Maidstone and the Weald."
Mrs Grant stopped claiming second-home allowance for a rental property in her constituency when her mother moved to a house within three miles of it.
'Appropriate'She had spent nearly 12 months commuting from London to Reigate or to her mother's house despite late-night votes and a journey that took an hour and half, a spokeswoman said in a statement.
"It frequently required hanging around on one, sometimes two, empty station platforms en-route, including Croydon, Purley and isolated Coulsdon South.
"It often ended waiting for a taxi or ultimately making a dark walk home from Kingswood station to her house down partly unlit roads."
As Mrs Grant's workload increased "it started to become apparent that she could not work as effectively, for as long as was needed, if she continued to commute from Surrey or the constituency," added the spokeswoman, and her claims for a flat in London were "appropriate".
Ipsa confirmed that the minister, who was promoted to the front bench in September's reshuffle, was entitled to a second-home allowance on Parliamentary expenses because her constituency was outside London, and her claim was within the rules.
An Ipsa spokesman said: "We set the rules up based on the constituency the MP represents. We provide support for one of those locations to help with renting a flat.
"Ultimately it comes down to the MP's judgment about what they need to claim for.
"We don't check to see what private assets an MP has."
Mrs Grant's London flat is supported by expense claims of £1,666.67 per month - the maximum allowed within the rules, which cap rental claims at £20,000 per year.
Mrs Grant has filed claims for rent since March this year.
The claims were uncovered in an investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches programme, which is due to broadcast a film called MPs: Are They Still At It? at 20:00 GMT on Monday.
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