Magdalene Sadler, 83, of Catherine Grove, Hartlepool said: "If he wants to study that's up to him. He can't expect you or me or anybody else to contribute to that. It's not fair, you find that all the time now.

"I don't think that we should be paying for dry cleaning. I dry my own washing on the line outside."

Melanie Kitching, 43, a care assistant and mum-of-four from the Throston area, said: "They are on about unemployment and people not getting off their backsides and finding work, yet they are spending taxpayers' money.

"Their income will be a lot higher than what we are going out to work for and we can't claim for this, that, and the other and transport. We have to pay our own way."

Anna Pieta, 26, unemployed, of Gloucester Street, Hartlepool, said: "They should be more careful with what they spend and they can calculate from what they spent last year and compare it to make proper decisions.

"They need to find better solutions. I think almost £600 on a hi-fi is a bit much."

Maria Currell, 42, a nurse and mother-of-two, of Milner Grove, Hartlepool said: "If I work for the NHS and get caught abusing expenses you get prosecuted and get kicked out of your post, so why aren't they? I think it's one rule for one, and one for the other."

Her husband, Steve Currell, 41, a forklift truck driver, said: "The thing is, it's a loophole because it's not just in the last five or six years. This has been going on for 60 to 70.

"They are abusing it, but in a way they are not abusing it because they can claim for these things. It's not right."

Alan Fawcett, 32, from the Belle Vue area of Hartlepool, said: "With him being an MP he should set an example. With him being an MP he should pay for everything himself, because everybody else does."

Tony Healey, 52, a warehouse worker, from Hartlepool, said: "We all wish we had other people's money to spend like that. It's unfair on everybody, not just the tax payer.

"There's people scrimping and scraping week in week out to survive and he is wasting money like that.

"That's not much compared to others but he could have found more worthwhile things to spend our money on."