Three peers should be suspended and repay expenses, a House of Lords committee has recommended after investigating their claims.
Labour’s Baroness Uddin should be suspended until Easter 2012, and told to repay £125,349, the privileges committee said.
It also recommended Labour’s Lord Paul be suspended for four months and cross bencher Lord Bhatia for eight months.
Peers must vote on whether to accept the committee’s recommendations.
Lord Paul has already paid £41,982 and Lord Bhatia has paid back £27,446.
The House of Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee found that both Lady Uddin and Lord Bhatia had not acted in good faith by incorrectly designating their main homes in order to claim overnight allowances.
Peers whose main home is outside London have been able to claim £174 a night to stay near Parliament when attending the House of Lords.
Baroness Uddin was among peers to attract the interest of the Sunday Times, who suggested they deliberately designated little-used properties outside London as their “main homes” – in order to claim overnight expenses.
“”We do not consider that a bolt hole as described by Lady Uddin could fall within any natural understanding of the term main residence”
House of Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee
The committee’s report notes that all three of those investigated “had long-established London residences, in which they spent the bulk of their time, before acquiring a ‘main residence’ outside London, in which they spent a much smaller portion of their time”.
Between 2001 and July 2005 Baroness Uddin told the Lords authorities her “main home” was a house owned by her brother and sister-in-law in Frinton-on-Sea in Essex. Between August 2005 and January 2010 she said it was a flat she owned in Maidstone, Kent.
From January this year she has designated a three-bedroom house in Wapping, east London, rented from a Housing Association, as her main home – the report notes it has been her family home since 1993.
The committee said she had described both the Essex and Kent properties as a “bolt hole” – but said that did not alter the fact that her home, her family and social life were in London.
“We do not consider that a bolt hole as described by Lady Uddin could fall within any natural understanding of the term main residence. A bolt hole is merely a place of escape,” the committee found.
It said Baroness Uddin should repay £125,349 “to which she was not entitled” – saying claims were “made wrongly and in bad faith” – and be suspended until the end of the current parliamentary session, around Easter 2012. The report suggested she did not have the means to repay the money.
Her claims were also investigated by the Metropolitan Police earlier this year but no charges were brought.
“I am disappointed that I seem to have been treated more harshly than others”
Lord Paul
The Labour peer and donor Lord Paul “freely admitted” he never spent a night at the one-bedroom flat in Oxfordshire he designated as his “main residence”, the report said.
The report on his claims states: “Lord Paul explained his interpretation of the term ‘main residence’ by reference to his cultural background. He insisted that ‘anyone coming out of India would not understand what main residence means’. He accepted that he had ‘not once’ looked at the guidance on the back of the claim forms.”
In oral evidence given on 11 October Lord Paul said the Sunday Times, which published the original investigation into his claims, had a “political agenda” and added: “I feel aggrieved that that action should be taken against me because of the newspapers.”
The committee said they could not claim, on the balance of probabilities, that he acted dishonestly or in bad faith but added: “However, his actions were utterly unreasonable and demonstrated gross irresponsibility and negligence.”
As he had already repaid the money it said he should be suspended for four months.
Responding to the report Lord Paul said: “I am disappointed that I seem to have been treated more harshly than others.”
He said the rules were unclear but he would accept the committee’s decision.
Lord Paul adds: “Despite the hurt that this has caused me, I accept the committee’s decision in the best traditions of parliamentary democracy.”
In a separate report into Lord Bhatia’s claims, the committee found he did “not act in good faith” in the way he designated his “main home” – for the purposes of claiming an overnight allowance – nor in mileage claimed for journeys to that property, in Reigate. It said he should be suspended for eight months.
Peers will debate the committee’s findings on Thursday and decide whether to suspend the peers. Leader of the Lords Lord Strathclyde said peers had “a duty” to consider reports into the conduct” of the peers.
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