LABOUR peers are prepared to accept fees of up to £120,000 a year to amend laws in the House of Lords on behalf of business clients, a Sunday Times investigation has found.
Four peers — including two former ministers — offered to help undercover reporters posing as lobbyists obtain an amendment in return for cash.
Two of the peers were secretly recorded telling the reporters they had previously secured changes to bills going through parliament to help their clients.
Lord Truscott, the former energy minister, said he had helped to ensure the Energy Bill was favourable to a client selling “smart” electricity meters. Lord Taylor of Blackburn claimed he had changed the law to help his client Experian, the credit check company.
Taylor told the reporters: “I will work within the rules, but the rules are meant to be bent sometimes.”
The other peers who agreed to assist our reporters for a fee were Lord Moonie, a former defence minister, and Lord Snape, a former Labour whip.
The disclosure that peers are “for hire” to help change legislation confirms persistent rumours in Westminster that lobbyists are targeting the Lords rather than the Commons, where MPs are under greater scrutiny.
No wonder there has been no movement to allow all convicted prisoners the vote, prisoners do not have the money to lobby or bribe those in the House of Lords to support the needed change in our legislation.
And from the Independent...
Investigation into 'amendments for cash' allegations
Labour's leader in the House of Lords said today she would investigate allegations that four peers offered to help undercover reporters posing as lobbyists obtain amendments to legislation in return for cash.
The Sunday Times named four Labour peers who it claimed offered to help its reporters for a fee, two of whom the paper said were secretly recorded.
The House of Lords Code of Conduct states that peers "must never accept any financial inducement as an incentive or reward for exercising parliamentary influence".
Bent bastards. I read also yesterday that labour is "revising" its charges for debtors courts from a £35 fee to £100, a jump of 233 per cent. Funny they do this now that personal and business debts are set to rocket through the roof this year and the next.
ReplyDelete