Peers claimed £360,000 expenses in five years but did not vote in House of Lords

Lifelong rights: Peers sitting in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament
Rachel Blundy16 August 2015
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Peers claimed £360,000 in attendance fees and expenses over the past five years despite not bothering to vote in the House of Lords, sparking fresh warnings the institution was "growing out of control".

During the 2010-15 parliament, 10 members of the upper chamber were responsible for claiming £236,000 of the expenditure, the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) found.

The body warned the institution was "shockingly out of date and unrepresentative" as it called for it to be reformed.

Peers are able to claim £300 for each sitting day they attend the House as well as limited travel expenses.

Investigators found that in the last parliamentary session alone, more than £100,000 was claimed by peers who did not vote at all.

The ERS said reported plans by David Cameron to appoint 50 more peers over the summer would cost at least £1.3 million a year in expenses and allowances.

It said any attempt to rebalance the upper chamber strictly in line with the 2015 general election results would require the appointment of an additional 723 members, resulting in a "supersized" upper chamber.

The group also questioned the independence of peers and the outside expertise they were able to bring - pointing out that the attendance rate of non-party crossbenchers was lower than that of party appointees.

ERS deputy chief executive Darren Hughes said: "We have shown that far from being a bastion of independence, non-partisan crossbench peers turn up far less frequently than party-political peers. And it's those peers who vote as a bloc, with Labour voting against the last coalition government, Conservative peers voting against the last Labour government nearly 100% of the time.

"On top of that, we have found that over a third of Lords previously worked in politics - compared to less than 1% of the British public.

"This is not a chamber of experts - it's a chamber of professional politicians. Our House of Lords looks nothing like the public whose decisions it impacts - almost half live in London or the South East, while there are just two peers under the age of 40. This is a shockingly out of date and unrepresentative institution.

He continued: "The Prime Minister said he 'regrets' not reforming the second House in the last parliament. It's time for him to act - and finally fix our broken upper chamber."

Additional reporting by the Press Association

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in