GEOFF Hoon has been told he does not have to repay £1,013 that the MPs' expenses investigator previously demanded.

Sir Thomas Legg was tasked by Gordon Brown to review the expense claims of all MPs over a four-year period. He found that two Notts MPs should repay money – including Ashfield MP Mr Hoon, whom he said had over-claimed £1,013 in mortgage interest.

Mr Hoon appealed the decision and today won the support of the official adjudicator Sir Paul Kennedy.

The adjudicator found that, while he had been overpaid in 2008/09, he had been underpaid in previous years – balancing out the difference.

Meanwhile Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson also appealed but was told he would have to hand back £3,484.

Mr Simpson said: "In the year they are looking at I have been overpaid as a result of the way mortgage claims had to be made, but if you look at the previous years I was underpaid by a higher amount.

"I want that to be taken into account, it is the reasonable thing to do to write the over payment off against the underpayment."

The total comes from £2,957 in mortgage payments and £527 in cleaning bills.

Mr Simpson said he was resigned to the fact that he may not change the decision on the cleaning bill.

But he argued that mortgage claims in years that the fees office underpaid him, had not been taken into account, as they had with Mr Hoon.

Mr Simpson's case will now be taken into account by the Commons Members Estimate Committee which will have the final say on whether he must repay anything.