The House of Lords Privileges and Conduct
Committee, the body charged with overseeing the operation of the House of Lords
Code of Conduct, has recommended that Lord Hanningfield be suspended from
the House of Lords for the remainder of the current Parliament. This is the
maximum sanction available to the Committee.
The
Committee’s report comes after Lord Hanningfield was investigated by the
independent Lords Commissioner for Standards, who found he breached the Code of
Conduct in claiming the daily attendance allowance on 11 days in July 2013 when
he had not undertaken any parliamentary work.
The
Commissioner also found that in doing so Lord Hanningfield ‘failed to act
on his personal honour.’ The Committee has also recommended that Lord
Hanningfield be required to repay the £3,300 he wrongly claimed for those
days.
In
his report to the Privileges and Conduct Committee, the Commissioner states
that to claim the daily attendance allowance Members must both attend the House
of Lords and undertake parliamentary work on the day of the claim. The
Commissioner states that his finding does not set a threshold for the amount of
time a Member must be on the parliamentary estate to claim, but rather that
Lord Hanningfield was not able to show that he undertook any parliamentary work
on the days in question.
The
Committee’s recommended sanctions must now be approved by the House of
Lords before coming into force. The House will be asked to approve the
report and the suspension on Tuesday 13 May.
Further information