Labour peer Baroness Uddin has named a flat in Maidstone, Kent as her main residence and claimed around £100,000 in Parliamentary expenses for it. This is despite the flat being empty and Baroness Uddin living in Wapping, East London – just four miles from the House of Lords.
From the Sunday Times:
Residents from the five other flats in the same block as Uddin’s property all say they have never seen her there. They could see through the windows that the bedrooms were unfurnished.
Yvonne Adams, who has lived next to the flat for three years, said: “I can’t emphasise enough how no one has lived there. They just haven’t. I know that for a fact.”
Adams said she went on to her rear balcony every day and had never seen anyone on the balcony next door. Until recently, there were piles of leaves on the balcony and sheets over the bedroom windows had fallen down. “There has never been a stick of furniture in there,” she said.
Last weekend, hours after The Sunday Times had challenged Uddin about her “main residence”, the baroness’s BMW 4×4 car was spotted at the Maidstone flat and members of her family arrived.
A plumber who went into the flat to help the family with a broken boiler said: “It looked like they were just moving in. They told me they were just moving in.” By Sunday night, curtains covered the windows, a light was on in the hall and a mat was placed outside the front door.
…Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat frontbencher, said: “An empty property can’t be a peer’s main residence. The Lords authorities must check the facts of this case and investigate.”
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3 Comments
Is there no end to Labour Party Sleaze & Corruption?
Where’s that General Election we so badly need?
Let’s call a thief a thief
http://rainbowherbicide.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/labours-thieving-peers/
I do have one concern though. We all hope that these scams are a Labour / Tory thing.
The root of it though is that the rules are hopelessly easy to abuse.
Norman Baker has been clear what our principles are on this matter – expenses should be precisely that, the expenses of being a parliamentarian, not a secondary source of income.
I haven’t though seen anything from the party either laying out a code of conduct that goes beyond the House rules or saying what we’re going to do if one of our peers either breaches that or the House rules.
The Mail in December for example highlighted how Razzle, Bonham-Carter, Walmsley & Thomas breach the principle if not the letter of the rules. And have personally benefited to the tune of thousands.
Has the party asked them to stop?
Has the Federal Executive set up a review to establish a code of conduct required to hold the whip?
Will there be a motion to conference calling for this?
Graig Murray at seems to have encountered anothe Labour Peeress on the make in dubious fashion.