A Tale of Two Peers
My colleague Stephen Walker has just pointed out on Evening Extra that whilst the Ulster Unionist peer Lord Laird topped the list for Lord's expenses with the local Conservative peer Lord Ballyedmond visited Westminster 28 times but didn't claim a penny. Of course it helps if you own a firm like
One obvious difference between the MPs' expenses and the Lords' allowances is that when you visit the Parliamentary website you can see facsimilies of individual MPs' receipts, right down to Sammy Wilson's Twix bars, but the details of claims from peers are only broken down into general categories.
I see that next week the Lords will debate a report from recommending changes to some of the Lords' allowances. The report acknowledges that Lords do not get a salary, but says "some Peers are concerned about the operation of their expenses regime. In principle the scheme reimburses expenses incurred in attending the House but in practice over the years the scheme has been used to generate an income for some Peers. Many Peers have been uncomfortable with this and pressed for a review because they believed the current
arrangements, which have evolved over time, lack precision, transparency and rigour."
The SSRB report on the Lords concludes that "we do not believe, on balance, that publication of Members' expenses claims should be at the receipt level", but maybe, given the direction of public opinion, it's only a matter of time before we get the right to see which kind of chocolate bars our peers prefer.
I'm 
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