Allowances

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support this Motion. I have a very simple question for the Leader. Bearing in mind what happened during the period up to 2009, have the usual channels thought carefully about what the phrase

“where it is necessary to do so”

means? Will there be some sort of check, for instance, or will it be a pure self-declaration as it used to be before—which led us into a bit of trouble?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am grateful to both noble Lords for supporting the Motion before the House. The noble Lord quotes “where it is necessary to do so”, but I am not quite sure where he is referring to in my comments or in the report. However, I think his point is about the verification, and I will address that first. He is right to address that because it must be a very robust process of verification. They will require a copy of the council tax statement, and for those many of those who have a second place in London where they stay, it will say “Second Home” on it; it specifies that it is not their main home. In addition to the council tax statement, there will of course be a record of people’s travel patterns back and forward to the House. So it is quite clear that if someone is travelling from another part of the country to stay in London for a few days to ensure they can carry out their duties in this House, that would be another point of verification. The noble Lord is right to raise the point, but this is why the commission took a long time to look at this, to give consideration to ensure that we were confident on that point.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord True. Indeed, I supported him when he first raised this issue last time last year. There is a balance of responsibilities both to the taxpayer and to Members of this House, but we would be the poorer if the only people who could attend your Lordships’ House to undertake their responsibilities were those who either lived in London or had private finance to enable them to stay in London.

This is less than is received in other places in overnight allowance; it is a contribution towards it, and Members will use their daily allowance to pay the rest of it. I appreciate the support from both noble Lords, and I hope that Members will agree that this is a way forward if we are to represent not only those who can afford to live in London.