Inquiry finds peers claiming £300 a day for no work ... but it is axed to avoid ‘press storm’

By A PROBE into peers who enjoy House of Lords perks without doing any work was dropped to avoid a “press storm”, a former Lords speaker has admitted.

Baroness D’Souza said her investigation had uncovered peers who clocked in to claim their £300 daily allowance and then made no contribution to the upper chamber.

However, she said she “abandoned” the research to avoid naming and shaming offenders.

Speaking in BBC Two’s Meet The Lords she said: “What I wanted to find out in the research that I did a few months ago was who was attending and what they were claiming and even though it is very difficult to quantify there are some who make no contribution whatsoever but who nevertheless claim the full amount.

“This is not a daycare centre or a club, it is actually a legislative house and I do firmly believe that the people who attend ought to be able to be in a position to contribute.”

She added: “I abandoned this research because it would have involved a degree of naming and shaming which I certainly didn’t want to do.

“But also that would in turn have provoked some kind of sort of a press storm which clearly, you know, I didn’t wish to – to do. But I mean the reputa- tion of the House is not that great anyhow.”

The peer admitted that the prestige of the Lords has “probably never been lower”. “The public perception is of a House full of aged males sitting around perhaps sleeping on the benches and the public only gets to know of the work of the House of Lords when the House of Lords really thwarts the Government or because there’s been a scandal,” she said.

Baroness D’Souza, a crossbencher, has previously alleged that one peer “jumped out of a taxi just outside the peers’ entrance, left the engine running. He ran in, presumably to show that he’d attended, and then ran out again while the taxi was still running.” She refused to name the peer, but said that a “sense of honour” associated with being a member of the upper chamber had been lost.

It came as Lord Blencathra, a former minister, suggested Lord Heseltine – who was last week sacked as a Government adviser for rebelling over Brexit – should be kicked out of the Lords for his low attendance rate. Figures from the 2014-15 session show that Lord Heseltine only attended three sitting days from a possible 126.

Lord Blencathra said: “There are some people who have tremendous expertise or maybe held high positions in government but if they are never here now then what is the point in staying on?”

In a previous episode of the programme, Baroness D’Souza said: “There is a core of peers who work incredibly hard, who do that work, and there are, sad to say, many, many, many peers who contribute absolutely nothing but who claim the full allowance.”

Meet the Lords airs tonight at 9pm on

‘I abandoned this ... because it would have involved naming and shaming which I certainly didn’t want to do’