List of pro-EU peers who voted to force soft Brexit on UK includes multiple Lords investigated over expenses and several with vast EU pensions
Those in the upper chamber who are trying to wreck Theresa May’s flagship EU legislation include Viscount Hailsham – dubbed Lord Moat – and the Kinnocks – a husband and wife team who get thousands of pounds a year from Brussels
THE list of pro-EU peers who voted to force a soft Brexit on Britain last night includes multiple Lords investigated over expenses claims and several with vast EU pensions.
Those in the upper chamber who are trying to wreck Theresa May’s flagship EU legislation include Viscount Hailsham – dubbed Lord Moat – and the Kinnocks, a husband and wife team who get thousands of pounds a year from Brussels.
Here is a rundown of some of the peers who backed the amendment that would stop the Prime Minister walking away from negotiations without a deal:
Viscount Hailsham, Conservative
Known as Lord Moat, the ex-MP got the nickname after infamously claiming £2,000 in expenses for cleaning the moat at Kettlethorpe Hall, his 13th century Lincolnshire manor house.
He also faced allegations that he charged for work done to the stables at his family estate and for his piano to be tuned.
Lord Deben, Conservative
The former Cabinet minister, then known as John Gummer, was rebuked after claiming £36,000 of taxpayer cash for gardening over four years.
He repaid £11,538 he had claimed in bills and donated £11,500 to charity, the seventh-highest amount for an MP in the 2009 expenses scandal.
Lord Willetts, Conservative
The ex-Havant MP and skills minister became embroiled in the expenses scandal when he had to pay back £135 he had claimed for workmen to replace 25 lightbulbs at his London house.
He also tried to claim £750 for a shed base in his garden and £175 for a dog enclosure at his constituency residence, but both were turned down.
Baroness Uddin, was Labour, now sits as an independent
She registered a seaside house in Essex owned by her brother as her “main home", and bought a flat in Kent as her primary address and claimed £174-a-night in allowances – while she was actually living in her home in East London.
After failing to apologise, the Lords conduct and privileges committee ruled she should repay more than £125,000 illegitimately claimed between 2005 and 2009. She was suspended for almost two years.
Lord Bhatia, was Labour, now independent
He was found to have designated a small flat in Surrey as his main home while he actually lived with his wife in a £1.5million house in West London, and was ordered to pay back £27,466 in allowances.
The peer was suspended for eight months, but in 2013 he was then accused by charity EMF of misappropriating more than £600,000 of its funds while he was in charge.
Baroness Thornton, Labour
In 2009 the peer, then a Labour minister in the whips’ office, was claiming up to £22,000 a year in expenses by saying that her mother’s modest bungalow in Yorkshire is her main home.
She racked up around £130,000, despite having a £1million house of her own in Hampstead, North London, but was cleared by the authorities as she said she visited Shipley every weekend.
Lord Rennard, Liberal Democrat
The former chief exec of the party stood down from his role in 2009 after a complaint that he claimed more than £40,000 for staying overnight in London to attend Parliament when he owned a house just two miles from Westminster.
It wasn’t upheld but he was mired further by a number of sexual allegations made against him in 2013, which led to a police investigation and a seven-month suspension by the party.
Viscount Falkland, crossbench hereditary peer
He admitted having “exploited a loophole” to claim £125,000 in Parliamentary expenses by designating a property in Kent as his main address despite living near Westminster.
He defended the decision after he was rumbled in 2009, saying he was an “impoverished peer”, despite owning a £1.1 million house in Clapham, and said a number of his colleagues had done the same thing.
Lord Cormack, Conservative
The veteran MP, who was knighted in 1995 for services to Parliament, stood down at the 2010 election after he was found to have claimed thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded expenses for household bills at both his main and second homes.
He and his wife, Mary, who was employed as his secretary, used separate rooms as offices at their home, allowing them to claim double the normal amount for office costs, raking in almost £10,000 on a three-year-period, but he later admitted to having to pay back a “very modest sum”.
Lord and Baroness Kinnock, Labour
The former Labour leader was also vice president of the European Commission, and is estimated to get almost £90,000 a year from his Brussels pension pot.
His wife Glenys, who was an MEP in Wales between 1994 and 2009, receives two pensions from her employment by the EU, which are calculated to have a combined value of more than £67,000 a year.
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Lord Tugendhat and Lord Patten, Conservative
Both served in the European Commission, and are believed to get close to £40,000 a year in pensions from their time there.
That is because those who were in office before May 2004 are entitled to get 4.5 per cent of the salary they last received for each year of service, and part of the £39billion Brexit bill Brussels is demanding will be to keep paying into the pension pots of ex-commissioners such as them.