Richard Benyon Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2009 until the 2010 general election when he entered government. He was also one of the first 15 MPs to support David Cameron's Conservative Party leadership bid. In May 2009, he was listed by "The Daily Telegraph" as one of the "saints" in the expenses scandal exposed by that newspaper. He was made Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the first Cameron Ministry. and remained in post until the junior and middle ranking Cameron reshuffle of October 2013. In 2012, while Wildlife
United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal paid £110,000 for the information, and described it as ‘money well spent in the public interest’. "The Times" and "The Sun" had turned down an offer to buy the leaked expenses file. Shortly after the publication of the information, the House of Commons authorities asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate, a request that the Metropolitan Police declined, on the grounds that a prosecution would not be in the public interest. Alongside specific allegations of incorrect claims such as claims for the cost of mortgages which it transpired had already been repaid in full the "Telegraph" alleged that parliamentary ‘Green Book’