A single decker bus like the one owned by Ashley Mote

Ashley Mote, who served a nine-month jail sentence last year for benefit fraud, has been told he will face legal action unless he sells the single-decker and repays the sum to the European Parliament.

Its Danish secretary-general Harald Romer said spending the money on the bus was “an inappropriate use of Parliamentary allowances”.

But Mr Mote, 72, claims he needs the bus, which he has converted into a mobile office, to travel across the eight counties which make up his South-east England constituency.

He said: “My constituency is from east Kent to west Hampshire, around London to north Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

“The bus is an ideal way of solving the problem of how to make contact with my constituents. The response has been fantastic.