Ex-Tory peers freed from prison

Former Tory peers Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield have been freed from prison after serving only a quarter of their sentences for fiddling their parliamentary expenses.

Lord Taylor, 58, was jailed for 12 months in May for fraudulently claiming more than £11,000 in taxpayers’ money, while Lord Hanningfield, 70, received a nine-month sentence in July after falsely claiming nearly £14,000.

Three former Labour MPs jailed over the parliamentary expenses scandal – Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Eric Illsley – have already been released.

Lord Taylor, a Birmingham-born former barrister who became the first black Conservative peer when he took his seat in 1996, was found to have lied under oath during his expenses fraud trial.

He told the House of Lords members’ expenses office that his main residence was a house in Oxford, when in fact he lived in west London, Southwark Crown Court heard.

The peer had only twice visited the Oxford property, which was owned by the partner of his half-nephew, Robert Taylor.

He was therefore not entitled to claim money for travelling from there to London and staying overnight in the capital.

Lord Hanningfield, a former pig farmer from West Hanningfield, near Chelmsford, served as a Lords opposition frontbencher and leader of Essex County Council. He falsely claimed £13,379 in expenses for overnight stays in London when he was not in the city, including one occasion when he was on a flight to India.

Lord Taylor and Lord Hanningfield look set to remain members of the Upper House despite serving time in prison. Successive ministers have proposed reforms so that errant peers could be expelled, but there is no way of removing them short of an act of parliament.

It is understood that the peers were freed separately under the curfew scheme, which allows low-risk prisoners to be tagged and released after serving at least a quarter of their sentence.