Expense cheats and egos in ermine who gave two fingers to democracy
THIS is a roll-call of the peers who helped torpedo the Government’s cuts to tax credits. Several have distinctly chequered backgrounds and – unlike George Osborne – not one has any democratic mandate for their tactics.
1. CANNABIS CAMPAIGNER
BARONESS Meacher, 75, Crossbencher, whose amendment defeated the Government.
A one-time social worker and employment adviser to the Russian government, she was chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform. An advocate of decriminalising hard drugs, she has said ‘some drugs are a good deal safer than tobacco and alcohol and it may be a very good thing if teenagers stopped getting drunk and took some types of legal highs instead’.
Her first husband was Labour minister Michael Meacher, a close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, who died last week. In 1991 she married economist and Labour peer Lord (Richard) Layard.
She lives in a £2million house in Highgate, north London, and rents out two adjoining flats.
2. PEER FOR SALE
LORD Taylor of Blackburn, 86, Labour. Made history in 2009 by becoming the first peer in 350 years to be suspended for breaching the code of conduct which requires lords to ‘always act on their “personal honour”’.
He was trapped by undercover journalists posing as lobbyists, after giving them the impression that he was willing to amend legislation in return for cash. Although he never accepted any money, a Lords committee said he had broken the rules in relation to ‘paid advocacy’. A report concluded he showed a ‘disturbing disdain for the rules’ and had made ‘deplorable boasts’ that he had breached them in the past.
3. WESTMINSTER HYPOCRITE
LORD Tyler, 73, Lib Dem. On the one hand insisted peers had a ‘right and a duty’ to defeat the Government, yet was on record for having said: ‘The Lords is much overrated as an assembly of the wise and the independent. Most non-party peers make lit- tle if any contribution to the House, while most party appointees are long-retired former MPs, councillors or failed Commons candidates. Almost all are very old and very “ex”.’ A definition which surely applies to himself – he was ennobled ten days after retiring as an MP in 2005.
4. WHISKY GALORE
LORD Foulkes, 73, Labour. Heckled Tories during the debate, accusing them of ‘all of being millionaires’. An MP for 36 years, he resigned from Labour’s frontbench in 1993 after being drunk and disorderly following a party hosted by the Scotch Whisky Association. At the time, he was a magistrate and was fined £1,050.
Also criticised for claiming £54,527 in expenses from the Lords while drawing a salary as a member of Scottish Parliament.
5. EXPENSES CHEAT
BARONESS Uddin, 56. Britain’s first Muslim woman peer, ennobled by Tony Blair in 1998. Avoided criminal charges even though she was suspended from the Lords and the Labour party for a record 18 months after fraudulently abusing her Parliamentary second home allowance. A Lords committee said her claims were ‘made wrongly and in bad faith’.
6. CUSHY HEATHROW JOB
LORD Soley, 76, Labour. Former chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. After becoming a peer in 2005, he took a well-paid lobbying role for the expansion of Heathrow airport. His former constituency is in the flight path.
A champion of what he has called ‘a proper regulatory body for the Press along the lines of [Lord] Leveson’.
7. THE FAILED MP
BARONESS Hollis, 74, Labour. Failed three times to be elected an MP but was a pensions minister under Blair.
in 2009, it emerged that with her partner Lord Howarth, a Labour peer who defected from the Tories, she claimed £117,389 in overnight parliamentary allowances in London. Lord Howarth owns a £1.4million home in London but designated his property in Norwich, which is next to Lady Hollis’s, as his main home, so they could both claim expenses when they attend Parliament.
8. MEDDLING BISHOP
CHRISTOPHER Foster, Bishop of Portsmouth, 61. Tabled one of the four critical amendments and has said the tax credit proposals are ‘morally indefensible’.
Signatory of the controversial bishops’ letter to the PM demanding an extra 30,000 more Syrian refugees to be admitted to Britain.
Lives with his wife, a vicar, in a £1million Grade ii-listed house in Fareham, Hampshire, and has a personal driver.
9. QUANGO QUEEN
BARONESS Manzoor, 57, Lib Dem. Behind the so-called ‘fatal motion’ in the Lords on Monday which would have blocked the tax credit changes entirely and was heavily defeated.
She has spent her career serving on public bodies. A former deputy chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, she was also chairman of Bradford Health Authority and was on the board of Bradford and Sheffield universities.