Retired members of the House of Lords are continuing to benefit from taxpayer-subsided meals in Parliament’s dining rooms for years after they step down from public service.
Peers who are deemed to have retired are allowed to continue to bring up to six guests for food and drinks in the Palace of Westminster, parliamentary authorities confirmed.
The information was disclosed to The Times in response to a Freedom of Information request relating to the resignation of Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft, who gave up his seat in 2015.
The former Conservative Party chairman has given more than £10m to the Tories.
He resigned from the Lords after saying his other interests, including his polling company Lord Ashcroft Polls, stopped him being able to “devote the time that membership of the Lords properly requires”.
Despite the fact he had chosen to step down, parliamentary authorities deemed Lord Ashcroft to have “retired” – thereby giving him the right to continue to use Parliament’s facilities.
In a letter to the peer, David Beamish, then the Clerk of the Parliaments, wrote: “The House Committee has agreed that the access privileges available to retired bishops should be made available to members who retire.”
He said such privileges include the right to “sit on the steps of the throne; and use the library (apart from the research facilities), the peers’ guest room, the peers’ dining room with up to five guests and the Barry room with up to six guests”.
Lord Ashcroft, who had sat in the Lords since 2000, was initially rejected for a peerage in 1999 because of his non-dom tax status.
He later promised to become a full UK taxpayer, although recent revelations from the Paradise Papers have raised questions over whether he did so.
House of Lords catering is subsidised to the tune of £1.2 million each year.
Because Parliament often sits long into the evening, MPs and lords say it is important to have dining facilities on site, but the revelation that even peers who no longer sit in the House are continuing to benefit from the perks is likely to prove controversial.
However, Lord Edminston, another Tory donor, said: “I believe it is important to encourage peers to retire when they feel it is the right moment. To cut them off from all their friends and contacts in the two houses of parliament after perhaps years of service would be poor reward.”
A House of Lords spokespreson said: “Former Members of the House of Lords who retire are able to use some of the House’s catering facilities. This was agreed by the House Committee in 2014 and that decision was published on the Parliamentary website at the time.”
