A Conservative minister has questioned publicly the way Culture Secretary Maria Miller apologised for over-claiming on her expenses.
Employment minister Esther McVey criticised Mrs Miller's 32-second Commons apology, saying she would not have said sorry in such a way.
Prime Minister David Cameron has continued to defend Mrs Miller.
She was cleared of funding a home for her parents at taxpayers' expense and has repaid £5,800.
But she was criticised by the Commons standards committee for taking an obstructive attitude towards an inquiry into her expenses, which followed a report in the Daily Telegraph.
'Final say'Ms McVey told ITV's The Agenda: "I can honestly say it wouldn't be how I would have made an apology. But different people have different styles and do things in different ways."
She said: "Fundamentally what we've got to do is make sure the public believe in their representatives and it is only right for the public and for politics that we get this matter right and we did actually because we changed the system in 2010."
The prime minister "has the final say" on whether Mrs Miller should keep her job, she added.
"He's standing by her. The whole system has changed since 2010 and remember this is pre-2010 - this couldn't happen now," she said.
Tuesday will be the sixth consecutive day Mrs Miller has made the headlines.
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said many Conservative MPs were irritated by her behaviour, the tone and brevity of her apology and, most of all, a distraction just weeks before the local and European Parliament elections.
Mr Cameron has said he is open to the idea of further reform of the way MPs' expenses and conduct are monitored.
Meanwhile, a petition organised by a Labour activist, calling for Mrs Miller to repay £45,000 of expenses or resign, has attracted more than 100,000 signatures.
A Downing Street source said it was for the prime minister to choose his cabinet, and plenty of MPs supported Mrs Miller.
Others who back Mrs Miller believe her role negotiating reforms to press regulation after the Leveson Inquiry into media standards and overseeing proposals for same-sex marriage has made her a target for newspapers and some fellow MPs.
'Completely irrational'A poll found that 74% of voters and 69% of Tory supporters thought the prime minister should have sacked Mrs Miller.
The ComRes poll of more than 2,000 people was commissioned by campaign group Conservative Grassroots.
Its chairman Robert Woollard said: "Mr Cameron's support of the culture secretary is completely irrational.
"When David Cameron spoke about the need for the actions of those in Parliament to pass the smell test, it was exactly for such occasions as these. Well this whole issue stinks and as this poll finds it is incredibly damaging to our party and the PM personally."
Labour has accused Mr Cameron of letting Mrs Miller "off the hook" but has not called for her resignation.
The row over the culture secretary's expenses dates back to December 2012, when the Telegraph reported she had claimed £90,718 in expenses towards mortgage payments on a house in Wimbledon, south-west London, that the MP shared with her parents.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards, who conducted an investigation into her expenses, ruled she should repay £45,800, but the House of Commons Committee on Standards, which has the final say on issues on ethics and disciplinary matters, cut this to £5,800.
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