Tax relief m'lord?

You won’t be seeing much news coverage of this.

In this age of austerity and cuts, the House of Lords spent yesterday afternoon debating their remuneration.

Their deliberations will result in the average annual take home pay and allowances of a peer being raised potentially to a consolidated sum of roughly £60,000. Popping his or her head round the door of he Lords’ chamber will earn £300 a day.

In the aftermath of expenses abuses, some of which left the Commons’ misdeeds looking positively paltry, their Lordships voted themselves a system which for the first time in history will actually demand receipts from them.

My informant (a male peer) tells me that the ‘authorities’ are desperate to avoid any further criminal charges following those laid against Lord John Taylor of Warwick.

Some ten peers have been found to have profited from claiming distant homes as their ‘primary residence’ to the tune of two or three hundred thousand pounds.

No effort has been made to check a peer’s claim of ‘primary residence’ against their tax return, where in a number of cases a London home was claimed as the main residence.

My informant tells me that the abuse of the expenses system in the Lords was so widespread that if everyone were to be prosecuted, more than a hundred cases would have to be pursued.

The new system is a little less likely to result in abuse. But their Lordships have decided their remuneration should be tax free.

So at the point at which the rest of the population is suffering tax rises, the House of Lords members are to be spared any tax at all on their earnings. Nice work if you can get it.