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Overnight allowances for peers will be slashed after investigation by watchdog
Joe Murphy, Political Editor29.10.09
Peers face a big cut in their expenses from £174 a night to £140, it emerged today.
Members of the House of Lords also face being asked to provide full receipts for the money they claim in future.
The changes are expected to be recommended by the independent Senior Salaries Review Body in a report.
It held an investigation after revelations that some peers were claiming thousands of pounds in overnight allowances even though their main residence was in London and they had no real need of the money to attend debates.
At present they can take a flat- rate £174 if their main home is outside the capital. Some are known to call into the House of Lords for a few minutes simply to qualify for the daily handout, before leaving without doing any obvious work.
A new figure of £140 is being mooted by the SSRB, reported the BBC. Its plans would let peers claim for hotel bills or rent for a small flat. But they will not be able to claim for mortgage costs.
In addition to accommodation expenses, peers can claim £75 a day for office and secretarial costs and £86.50 a day for subsistence costs such as meals and taxis. These may be merged and subject to receipts and checking.
The Lords is also expected to get an independent watchdog for the first time. Lords leader Baroness Royall is unveiling the findings of a committee reviewing the code of conduct after a series of controversies hit the Upper House.
These included the suspension of Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn for offering to lobby to change the law in return for cash, and allegations over expenses claims by Baroness Uddin, Lord Clarke of Hampstead and Lord Taylor of Warwick.
Reader views (3)
£140 is still too much you can get a travelodge type place even on Tower Bridge Rd for £99.
- P Staker, London
The UK currently has a foul-smelling pigsty in the form of the House of Conmen.
Abolish the Lords now. Let the parasites rot in hell.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR
The lords is a retirement home full of failed politicians, a corrupt and dishonest ex-speaker, a convicted perjurer, lords willing to alter legislation in exchange for cash, an attorney general who broke the law - and all of them misappropriating tax payers' money by making fraudulent claims for expenses. When all the guilty parties in the commons have been brought to justice an investigation needs to be carried out into the claims made by those in the lords' cesspit. Baroness Scotland paid her cleaner with cheques signed "Baroness Scotland" until the expenses scandal broke after which she signed them Patricia Mawhinney. It stinks.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK
