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Pressure on the House of Lords to clean up its expenses system intensified today after authorities admitted a huge loophole in the way peers receive taxpayers' cash.
Critics claim that peers who live in the capital and maintain second homes in the country have been wrongly taking thousands of pounds in public money for years.
The Commons guidelines on what constitutes a "main home" make clear that MPs have to spend most of their time there to claim for the upkeep of another property.
But Clerk of Parliaments Michael Pownall said last night there was no definition of a "main address" in the guidance for the Lords and so he could not uphold a complaint that Liberal Democrat peer Lord Rennard had wrongly claimed the overnight allowance.
Lord Rennard has a home in Stockwell but in 2007 redesignated his "main" home as his second property in Eastbourne.
The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics alleged he spent more time in London than in the country and was not entitled to the payments. They also claimed he signed in for the Lords only to spend more time working not as a peer but at the Lib Dems party HQ.
Mr Pownall refused to uphold the complaints, stating there was no evidence to support them.
