A Labour peer claimed nearly £50,000 in allowances over a 12-month period despite not making any written or spoken statements.
Lord Brookman, a former steel worker and trade unionist, was present for all 157 sitting days between September 1 2017 and August 31 2018.
Publicly available records, first reported by the Guardian, show Lord Brookman received daily allowances totalling £47,385 and attendance travel costs of £2,396 in this period, a total of £49,781.
Records from Hansard show the peer did not make any spoken contributions or written statements during this period, but did vote 38 times.
Lord Brookman, a peer since 1998, has since made contributions to debates on British Steel.
He did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.
Swraj Paul, a business magnate elevated to the Lords by Sir John Major in 1996, also attended for 157 days and claimed more than £47,000 of allowances while speaking once, according to the paper.
He said there was more to attending the House than just making speeches.
When asked by the Guardian what this could include, the crossbencher said: "Thinking, etc, and giving my point of view to colleagues."
Members of the House of Lords are not paid but are entitled to up to £305 per day attendance allowance if they certify they have "undertaken Parliamentary work".
The paper reported that 88 peers - around 11% - never spoke or participated in a committee over the year.
Former Lords speaker Frances D'Souza told the paper there was "clearly a need to reduce numbers", adding: "There are people who are attending the House of Lords who are not contributing, and therefore they are simply redundant."
During the period of the analysis, there were 785 lords - 244 Conservatives, 196 Labour and 97 Liberal Democrats , 248 crossbench peers, as well as those representing other parties and the Church of England.
