Member News
The House of Lords has released details of peers' expenses claims for the first quarter of this financial year.
Information about the expenses paid to members for the financial year 2009/10 has also been published.
The documents are available on the Parliament website.
The release of information is part of the new publication scheme whereby claims are published quarterly rather than annually.
Peers make claims based on a "simple and transparent flat rate attendance allowance".
This daily allowance replaces the separate overnight subsistence, day subsistence and office costs in the previous system.
Unsalaried members of the House of Lords able to claim £300, £150 or make no claim for each day they attend the House.
Peers choose at which rate they wish to claim and entitlement is determined by attendance, not based on residence criteria.
The old system was brought into disrepute last year after newspaper stories exposed possibly criminal practice by some peers.
Last month Baroness Uddin, Lord Bhatia and Lord Paul were suspended for abusing their second home allowances.
In each case the Lords privileges and conduct committee found the peers had designated properties outside of London as their "main home" even though they resided "substantially inside London".
The CPS decided not to prosecute Baroness Uddin, the first Muslim woman appointed to the Lords, after she claimed for a second home she never used.
Two Tory peers, Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield, have been charged with offences relating to their expenses and their cases are before the courts.
Article Comments
These people occupy positions of great privilige, any proof of malpractice should be immediately followed by their public ejection from this house of privilige. From the Queen to the lowest person in the land, the law applies.
Those who hold these exalted positions should be required to demonstrate much higher levels of probity and therefore should be more harshly treated, should they be found wanting.
anti-janus
26th Nov 2010 at 1:37 am
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