Now Baroness of Excess is Baroness Shameless!

Peer with huge expenses bills for flowers, ballet and making taxis wait insists: We must maintain ‘mystique’ of Parliament

THE peer who spent tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on chauffeurdriven cars, flowers and entertaining dignitaries last night tried to justify her spending by saying that it helps to ‘promote Parliamentary democracy’.

Baroness D’Souza, a former university lecturer, holds the largely ceremonial role of Speaker of the House of Lords, which pays her more than £100,000 a year.

Last December, the Mail branded her ‘Baroness of Excess’ after it emerged she racked up a £30,000 expenses bill for entertaining dignitaries over just five years – including £890 to take a Russian delegation to the ballet – and spent £4,000 on ornamental flowers.

The taxpayer also picked up the tab for cars to wait while she had lunch or attended the opera, costing hundreds of pounds.

But yesterday, in a BBC interview, she insisted it was not ‘an excessive amount of money’.

Sometimes it was necessary to spend ‘a little bit of money’ to ‘promote Parliamentary democracy’, she said. Appearing on Daily Politics, she claimed she often had to take a hire car on the advice of security officials, and that her spending was necessary to maintain the ‘mystique’ of Parliament. She also argued taxpayers would not ‘begrudge’ her £20 a week on flowers for her office.

‘It’s my job. It is my job to host people. It is my job to promote Parliamentary democracy both here and abroad and sometimes I need to spend a bit of money to do it,’ she said.

She claimed she had cut entertainment spending by half, adding: ‘In the last financial year, do you know how much I spent hosting VIP delegations, prime ministers, presidents, counterparts, speakers, heads of delegations, two kings? I spent £2,300.

‘Now I don’t think that is an excessive amount of money. Indeed it is somehow expected of Westminster, which is the mother of parliaments,’ she said.

‘People have enormous respect almost for the mystique of the mother of parliaments, which we don’t have in this country.

‘It is entirely appropriate that the media criticises and scrutinises taxpayers’ expenditure, that is their job.

‘But taken in context it is very important to point out that there are times when I have to take a car, a hire car, because I am advised by security to do so.’

Lady D’Souza added: ‘In context it was a somewhat unfair attack and I don’t think people would begrudge £20 a week, for instance, on flowers.

‘It is wonderful to be able to do that and I am very grateful and I feel very privileged, but actually what I am doing is promoting Parliament and Parliamentary democracy.’

Details of her lavish spending, revealed by a Freedom of Information request, show she claimed £230 to keep a chauffeur-driven car waiting while she attended the opera and £270 while a car waited four and a half hours for her to have lunch with a Japanese ambassador in central London.

She also used a Mercedes to travel from Westminster to Canterbury for the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at a cost to taxpayers of £627.

Figures revealed she billed tens of thousands of pounds for business class flights and stays in high-end hotels costing up to £300 a night. A ten- day official trip by Baroness D’Souza to Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the autumn of last year left a bill of nearly £26,000.

She flew business class to Tokyo and back from Hong Kong at a cost of £3,281 with three staff. Her ‘executive deluxe’ room at the five-star Le Meridien Taipei in Taiwan on October 5 was £248.

The following morning, her party ran up a £123 tab for ‘in-room dining’ during a breakfast meeting with local British officials.

Dia Chakravarty, the political director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It is entirely reasonable to raise questions about the expenses of a public office when taxpayers are picking up the tab.

‘People understand that there will be reasonable expenses associated with entertaining dignitaries but to scrutinise them and probe into expenses which don’t immediately make sense is a part of our democratic right.

‘Baroness D’Souza should accept that this level of scrutiny comes with her office along with its pomp and prestige.’

The role of Lord Speaker was created in 2006 and Lady D’Souza is the second holder, having been elected by her colleagues in 2011. The job has a salary of £101,000.

‘I’m promoting democracy’