M A I N   N E W S

Special to the tribune
Was Lord Paul a victim of political vendetta?
Shyam Bhatia in London

Disgraced NRI members of the House of Lords have been offered a potential lifeline to salvage their reputation by a fellow member of the British Upper House.

Jalandhar-born Lord Swraj Paul, who has a degree from the MIT in the US and was once a confidant of the late Indira Gandhi, is one of three British lords suspended from Parliament after wrongly claiming thousands of pounds in expenses.

He is one of the UK’s richest men with an estimated personal fortune running into hundreds of millions of pounds. In 2003, he was quoted as saying that difficulties in the business world were linked to "greed coupled with the abdication of personal responsibility."

Last October, the House of Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct commented that “on the balance of probabilities”, it was unlikely that Lord Paul acted dishonestly or in bad faith. But it said his actions were “utterly unreasonable and demonstrated gross irresponsibility and negligence” and there was, therefore, no option but to suspend him for four months.

Similarly, the committee found that East Africa-born Lord Amir Bhatia and Bangladeshi-origin Baroness Uddin had all repeatedly taken generous overnight allowances of £174 (Rs 14,000 per night) by registering properties outside London as their main homes, even though they rarely stayed in these.

When their conduct was discussed in a parliamentary debate, Paul in particular was singled out by a fellow Asian Lahore-born Baroness Shreela Flather who commented, "I want to say how distressing it is for me personally to find the 80th richest man, Lord Paul, saying that he didn't understand what 'main' and 'residence' meant.

"All of us know what they mean. And if we don't, may I suggest that we should not be sitting in this chamber.

“Lord Paul also says something about Indian culture. I don't know which Indian culture he is speaking of. I don't know of that culture.”

Paul has since repaid £41,982 (Rs 33 lakh), Bhatia has repaid £27,000 (Rs 21 lakh), but Uddin, who was suspended for 18 months, is yet to repay more than £100,000 (Rs 80 lakh)

In Paul’s case, there was some speculation at the time that he was the victim of political vendetta and had been more harshly treated because he was close to former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The implication was that Brown’s foes, including friends and supporters of his predecessor Tony Blair, were trying to embarrass him by hitting out at his known friends.

No such speculation surrounds the conduct of Bhatia or Uddin, but all three South Asian peers, including Paul, are possible beneficiaries of an initiative taken by another member of the Upper House, Lord Alli, who asked if his colleagues were victims of racial targeting.

He is quoted in the Daily Mail newspaper as saying, “Something is not right about the way these three peers were treated. There were at least 12 members of the House of Lords who were accused of abusing their second-home allowances. Yet only these three were singled out to be disciplined. Look at them. All three are Asian. It does not look right. This process was flawed.”

Alli is paying a London lawyer to carry out an independent review of the penalties imposed on the three errant peers.

The lawyer’s conclusions will be made available to the conduct committee, although the committee itself is not obliged to respond to any outside report.

The committee has three members: former Labour Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine, former head of the Ml5 secret service Lady Eliza Manningam-Buller and Commission for Racial Equality ex-chief Lord Dholakia.

“I have spent almost thirty years in the race-relations industry,” Dholakia was quoted as saying.

“It is unthinkable that I would be involved in anything that smacks of racism,” he was further quoted as having stated.

Meanwhile, Guyana-born Lord Alli, the first openly gay member of the House of Lords, has refused to further elaborate on his initiative. Calls made to him have not been returned.