A Conservative peer who accused the House of Lords of “thinking of nothing but the rights of foreigners” employed immigrants in his home, it has been claimed.
Lord Norman Tebbit, former minister under Margaret Thatcher, allegedly paid a number of immigrants, including at least two Europeans, to carry out household tasks and care for his disabled wife — despite having condemned peers during a Brexit debate for attempting to protect the rights of foreigners.
One Czech woman, Marketa Ziskova, said she worked in the former Conservative cabinet minister's household in 2007 as a relief carer for his disabled wife, during which she claimed she was paid minimum wage and told to address the couple as “Lord” and Lady”.
Ms Ziskova, who lived in Britain for nine years before returning to the Czech Republic in 2013, provided The Independent with a copy of a pay slip she said demonstrates her employment under Lord Tebbit in May 2017. She described her several months working as a relief carer for Lady Tebbit as an “unpleasant” experience.
"They always had foreign carers. There was me, a girl from Slovakia and another girl from South Africa, but we worked single-handed shifts," Ms Ziskova said.
“We had to lift her many times during the day. I helped his wife with everything – washing, dressing, hair, cooking.
“When we had time off we still had to stay at their house and sleep there. We couldn’t stay with friends, for example.
"We ate dinner with them and were only allowed to drink water while they drank wine. Our food was in a separate fridge and it was mainly Tesco’s economy.
“We had to call them Lord and Lady Tebbit. It felt like they owned us. It was an unpleasant experience."
The Independent has tried to contact Lord Tebbit for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
It comes a day after the former minister sparked anger in the House of Lords on Wednesday when he attacked the bid by peers to give a post-Brexit guarantee to three million EU citizens living in Britain.
Drawing gasps from those around him, Lord Tebbit accused peers of attempting to protect the rights of EU nationals of “thinking of nothing but the rights of foreigners,” before adding: “Why is everybody here today so excited about an amendment which looks after foreigners and not the British?”
Lord Tebbit has been known to express an anti-immigrant sentiment in the past.
As an MP under John Major in 1991, he said he did not think certain immigrant communities would assimilate “because some of them insist on sticking to their own culture, like the Muslims in Bradford and so forth, and they are extremely dangerous”.
