House Committee

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I take a certain amount of issue with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. We are not here in a court of law. We are a self-regulating House and we have the reputation of this House to worry about. There seems to be great concern about whether the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, has the means to repay the amount of money which she seems to have fraudulently claimed. But have we looked into the circumstances of the noble Baroness? I gather that she owns her own house in London. Could she not mortgage that house and repay in that way, or could she not even sell it and buy a smaller one? It strikes me that we are rather taking her at her own word that she is unable to repay this amount of money.

We have the reputation of this House to consider very deeply. If we were to invite her back while enormous sums of taxpayers’ money were still owing, I do not think that the British public would understand that in any way whatever.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, from listening very carefully, my understanding is that the issue that my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland raised was not specifically to do with the individual case. It was to do with the process of retrospection and those rules that applied at the time that a decision was taken with regard to a particular case. I have not been in your Lordships’ House as long as many noble Lords but, from listening carefully, particularly to noble and learned Lords over the years, I know that the issue of retrospective legislation of any sort is anathema to most people in your Lordships’ House. I hope that we will not debate this issue with reference to an individual or to whether an individual can or cannot repay. I hope that we will stick entirely to the issue of retrospection.