£300-a-day peers doing nothing at all …says a peer!

MANY peers contribute ‘absolutely nothing’ in return for the £300 a day they get for turning up at the House of Lords, a former Lords Speaker has admitted.

Baroness D’Souza said she had witnessed one peer leave a taxi waiting outside while he ‘ran in’ to claim his attendance allowance.

And she told a BBC documentary that the ‘ sense of honour’ that used to accompany a peerage had been lost in recent years following a wave of political appointments.

Another senior peer, Lib Dem Lord Tyler, called the Lords the ‘best day care centre for the elderly in London’.

Speaking in the BBC documentary Meet The Lords, crossbencher Baroness D’Souza said: ‘There is a core of peers who work incredibly hard – and there are, sad to say, many, many, many peers who contribute absolutely nothing but who claim the full allowance.

‘I can remember one occasion when I was leaving the House quite late and there was a peer – who shall be utterly nameless – who 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.

‘That’s not normal, but it is something that does happen. We have lost the sense of honour that used to pertain, and that is a great, great shame.’ Peers are entitled to a tax-free attendance allowance worth £300 a day. But there are no checks on what a peer does after signing in, meaning unscrupulous members are free to leave immediately.

Lord Tyler suggested many peers treat the Lords as a rest home. He told the programme, which will be broadcast next Monday: ‘It is the best day care centre for the elderly in London.

‘Families can drop in him or her and make sure that the staff will look after them very well ... nice meals subsidised by the taxpayer ... and they can have a snooze in the afternoon in the chamber or in the library.’

Lord Tebbit and Lord Blunkett criticise the appointments process, suggesting too many political cronies and donors have been appointed in recent years. Lord Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, said: ‘You have got people who may well be, out of the patronage of the government of the day, rewarded for either keeping their mouth shut or opening their mouth or their purse at a particular moment in time.’

Tory ex- chairman Lord Tebbit said: ‘ You wouldn’t have imagined Mrs Thatcher wanting to give a peerage to Denis Thatcher’s tailor or something like that. But we have come pretty close to that in recent years.’

Current Lord Speaker Lord Fowler acknowledged concerns about the size of the Upper House, which has more than 800 members. He said: ‘The public and the Press regularly mock the size of the House, over 800, second only in size to the Chinese people’s congress. And they are right, we need to be smaller.’