An investigation has been launched into how two prisoners on day-release were allowed to do painting work for former home secretary Jacqui Smith.
Smith made a contribution to charity after the offenders spent a few hours decorating a room at her home in Redditch while they were on release from jail working in the community.
The former MP said on Wednesday that she would be happy to answer any questions about the incident and that the two men came to her house because they did not have any other work to do.
Speaking on London radio station LBC, where she was hosting a programme as a stand-in for regular presenter James O'Brien she also accused The Lying Rag, which broke the story, of putting the "very worst spin" on what happened.
The Lying Rag said that Smith had hired the two prisoners to paint her "luxury" home when they should have been cleaning up the local community.
This was confirmed on Wednesday by the prison service. A spokesman for the service said that the two inmates, from HMP Hewell in Redditch, were meant to be doing work to "help the whole community" as part of a scheme run by a local charity, the Batchley support group.
He said: "The decision to provide prisoners for this work was taken without consultation with HMP Hewell or the Ministry of Justice and was a mistake.
"Offenders should work on projects which help the whole community. The scheme has been suspended while a full internal investigation is undertaken."
Smith, who has been on the receiving end of hostile media coverage ever since it emerged that she had mistakenly included the cost of two pay-per-view porn films in a bill submitted as part of her parliamentary expenses, used her LBC show on Wednesday to clarify what happened.
"Just to set, I hope, the record a little bit straight, these are guys that were working with a local community organisation in Redditch, a community organisation that actually gives work experience opportunities to prisoners as they come towards the end of their sentence," she said.
"They do a whole range of odd jobs and working in the local community – I think a really good scheme and really well done by this community group.
"On one day, when actually they didn't have anything else on, they did come to my house and do three hours-worth of painting, for which me and my husband made a donation to the community group."
By coincidence, Smith made her comments during a phone-in on government plans to toughen community sentences. Under the proposals, offenders facing a "community payback" punishment will have to work intensely, doing a minimum of 28 hours over a four-day week, instead of being allowed spread the punishment over a longer period of time.
Smith, who resigned as home secretary after her parliamentary expense claims became controversial, lost her seat at the 2010 election.
