MANDELSON, KINNOCK AND THE REMAINERS WITH LAVISH BRUSSELS NEST EGGS
As peers come under pressure to declare their EU pension pots, ANDREW PIERCE reveals the estimated retirement nest eggs and annual payouts generated by Europhile members of the Lords who once worked in Brussels After two spells as an MEP, Lord Inglewood, 65, has a pension pot of £223,000 that pays him £11,500 a year. An Eton-educated landowner, the hereditary Tory peer is part of the Conservative Group for Europe and says he backed Remain because the EU meant that – unlike his father and grandfather – he did not have to go off to France to fight the Germans. He said: ‘I strongly believe that one should be able to go to Victoria station and get a ticket to anywhere one likes in Europe.’
Outspoken Lib Dem Baroness Ludford 65, was an MEP for 15 years until 2014 when she lost her seat. Her pension pot is £391,000, paying her £21,100 a year. As Lib Dem Brexit spokesman in the Lords, she said there had to be a ‘public endorsement’ before the Government could ratify a final Brexit deal. An EU fanatic, she said in 2011 of joining the euro: ‘The idea in principle has its advantages. We are keeping it under review.’
A Labour MEP from 1974 to 2004, Lord Balfe, 72, defected to the Tories in 2002, the first from the Labour Party since 1977. His European pension pot is worth £558,000 and pays him £28,742 a year. A committed Europhile, he supported Britain joining the single currency, and pushed for EU citizens in Britain to vote in the general election. On the referendum result he said: ‘This whole issue has sent a shiver down the spines of servants of all our international institutions.’ David Cameron’s last EU Commissioner, Lord Hill of Oareford quit less than two years into the job in protest at the referendum result. Despite voluntarily resigning from the £200,000-a-year job, he will still be paid by the EU after Britain leaves. Commissioners are entitled to a ‘transitional allowance’ of about 40 per cent of their basic salary for three years after leaving. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker called him a ‘true European’. Passionate Europhile Baroness Hooper, 77, was ennobled by Margaret Thatcher and was an MEP for five years until 1984. She has a pension pot of £31,267 paying her £1,610 a year. Last month she told peers about the referendum: ‘I was bitterly disappointed at the result.’ One of 104 Lib Dem peers threatening to derail the Brexit Bill, former MEP Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted, 63, has a £234,000 pension pot, worth £12,100 a year. In the Lords last year she said media coverage of the referendum was ‘shocking’.
An EU Commissioner from 1985-89, Labour peer Lord Clinton-Davis, 88, has a pension pot of £419,000 worth 21,500 a year.
Another obscure MEP who served for 15 years until 1999 is Labour’s Baroness Crawley, 67, whose pension pot is worth £274,000, paying her £14,100 a year. In December she said: ‘The best option for the UK’s future relationship with the EU is to revisit the whole decision with a second referendum.’ Lord Harrison, 69, was an MEP for a decade until 1999, building a nest egg of £183,000, worth £9,400 a year. The Labour peer is a leading humanist. An MEP for ten years until 1999, Baroness McIntosh of Pickering, 62, was deselected as a Tory MP after a revolt by her local party before the last general election. Her £182,000 pension pot equates to £9,400 a year. The leader of the unsuccessful campaign to ensure 16-yearolds could vote in the referendum, Baroness Morgan of Ely, 50, was a Labour MEP for ten years. Her £377,000 pot gives her an annual £19,429. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, 75, has a Euro pension pot of £251,000, giving her an
annual pension of £ 12,953. A former Tory MP who defected to the Lib Dems, she has made supportive noises to the Conservative leadership. Britain’s only president of the EU, Lord Plumb, 91, was an MEP for 20 years until 1999. Plumb’s pen- sion pot is £365,000, paying him £18,800 each year.
Former minister for Europe, Baroness Quin, 72, was a Labour MEP for ten years and her £93,000 pension pot gives her a £4,800 annual salary. After the June 23 vote, she said: ‘As a lifelong supporter of the EU, I was utterly dismayed at the outcome.’
Baroness Rawlings, 78, was a Tory MEP for five years, giving her a £60,000 pot worth around £3,100 each year. An ardent Remainer, she lives in a 13-bedroom mansion in 38 acres in Norfolk. She was ridiculed when she gave tips on austerity to Tatler magazine, advising that to avoid the cost of hiring a marquee at garden parties, one should invest in 200 Panama hats to act as a sunscreen. An EU Commissioner from 1981-85, Labour’s Lord Richard, 84, has a retirement nest egg of £358,000 – generating £18,450 a year. The Lib Dem former MEP Lord Teverson, 64, has a £91,000 pension pot that pays out £4,700 a year. He is not reconciled to the referendum result, declaring: ‘Brexit does not mean Brexit.’ Labour’s Lord Tomlinson, 77, an MEP for ten years, has built a £182,000 pot with a £9,400 pension. He attacked the refusal to give votes in the referendum to expatriates. ‘There is something very wrong if British people who have devoted their careers to working for the EU were unable to vote in a referendum on the future of the EU,’ he said. Oxford- educated Baroness Billingham, 77, who spent the first years of her life in a Barnardo’s children’s home, was chief whip in the Labour group in the European Parliament in the 1990s. Her pension pot is worth £91,000 and pays her £4,700 each year.
Lord Truscott, 57, hit the headlines in 2009 when he became the first peer to be suspended since the 17th century over allegations of seeking cash in return for influencing legislation. An MEP for five years, he has a pension pot of £91,000, which equals £3,700 a year.
A former vice president of the European Commission, Tory Lord Tugendhat has a £796,000 pot, paying him £41,000 a year. Of the referendum result, he lamented: ‘All the wrong people are cheering.’