Author: By Andrew Woodcock, Press Association

Clerk of the Parliaments Michael Pownall said he had referred Lord Clarke’s
case to the House of Lords Sub-Committee on Lords’ Interests.

Lord Clarke was told on Friday by the Crown Prosecution Service that he will
not face criminal charges over allegations relating to his claims for
overnight allowances. Three Labour MPs and one Conservative peer are facing
prosecution for false accounting.

But today’s announcement raises the possibility that the Labour peer may face
some form of parliamentary discipline, if allegations that he claimed
expenses to stay in London while returning to his home in St Albans are
upheld.

Mr Pownall also announced that he had rejected complaints about the expenses
of nine other peers.

Mr Pownall released a letter he sent today to a member of the public who
raised complaints about peers expenses last November.

In it, he wrote that he had suspended his examination of Lord Clarke’s case
because of the police investigation which ended with Friday’s announcement.

He added: “As I regard this case as complex and serious, I have today referred
the complaint relating to Lord Clarke to the Sub-Committee on Lords’
Interests for examination.”

Mr Pownall said he did not uphold complaints against Lord Speaker Baroness
Hayman, Labour peers Lord Haworth, Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, Lord Morris
of Manchester, Baroness Thornton and Baroness Whitaker, Liberal Democrats
Baroness Barker and Baroness Northover and Conservative Lord Colwyn.

And he said he had not considered a complaint about Attorney General Baroness
Scotland, as she was not entitled to claim under the peers’ reimbursement
scheme because she was a minister during the period concerned.

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