Shocking event! the Guardian actually says that a "Labour peer” COULD be in the wrong! "Baroness Bethnal Green" facing investigation...

Baroness Uddin faces inquiry calls over second home fees
Allegra Stratton
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 May 2009 19.55 BST
Article history
The Labour peer Baroness Uddin today became the latest politician accused of distorting their expenses after claiming £100,000 from the taxpayer for a flat neighbours said had been unoccupied for years.

Uddin reportedly told parliamentary authorities that a two-bedroom flat in Maidstone, Kent, which she bought four years ago was her main residence, allowing her to claim the allowance for a second home allocated to parliamentarians who live outside commuting distance of the capital.

All five neighbours of the peer's Maidstone flat insist the property has been vacant for years while Uddin has continued to live in Wapping, east London, four miles from Westminster. The Sunday Times alleged that Uddin has claimed £30,000 a year to pay for the Maidstone flat and that the family house in east London, where her children went to school, is her "second home".

Uddin became Labour's first female Muslim peer in 1998 and has lived in the three-bedroom house in Wapping since 1993. In contrast, a plumber who recently visited the Maidstone property after Uddin's son asked him to check the boiler, reported that the central heating appeared not to have been working for a "long time". He said: "I've been in more flats than I care to remember, but this place looked like someone had left it ages ago. It was very dusty."

Uddin said the property was a "fully furnished home".

Moshahidur Rahman, who lives next door to Uddin's flat in Maidstone, said: "I would recognise Baroness Uddin in an instant, I've seen her on TV many times. She is very well known in the Bangladeshi community.

"I can't believe Baroness Uddin owns that place. I didn't think anyone lived there. I thought she lived in London. I've never met her."

Tonight Angus Robertson, the leader in Westminster of the Scottish National party, which has campaigned for stricter controls on expenses, said he wanted two inquiries into the baroness's expense claims.

"I will be writing to the police and the House of Lords authorities asking them to investigate this report," he said.

Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman in the Lords, said: "An empty property can't be a peer's main residence. The Lords authorities must check the facts of this case and investigate."

Uddin said: "Should the House of Lords authorities wish to investigate the matter I will, of course, co-operate fully." She said she stayed at the flat "regularly" and that it had furniture.

The fresh allegations will annoy Gordon Brown, who 10 days ago moved to expedite reforms to the second home allowance by announcing on YouTube plans to introduce a flat-rate of daily expenses for attending parliament. The prime minister was forced to drop that plan four days later after a significant group of Labour backbenchers joined with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to threaten a parliamentary defeat and the motion was removed from last Thursday's schedule of votes.