Lord Alli loaned £62,000 to Baroness Uddin in expenses case: Report

LORD Alli, a Labour peer, lent £62,000 to Baroness Uddin over a decade ago after she was ordered to repay £125,000 in wrongly claimed parliamentary expenses, as reported by The Times.

The expenses scandal, initially revealed by The Sunday Times in 2012, resurfaced as Lord Alli gained attention for donating gifts, including clothes and glasses, to Keir Starmer and his wife, Victoria.

Baroness Uddin, appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair in 1998, was found to have falsely declared her primary residence in Maidstone while living in Tower Hamlets.

In 2010, the Lords' sub-committee suspended her for 18 months, demanding full repayment of the expenses. Lord Alli's loan allowed her to cover part of the repayment and return to the chamber.

In October 2010, Lord Alli raised concerns in the House of Lords that the only three peers referred to the committee for conduct, including Uddin, were of Asian descent. He urged Lord Strathclyde, then-leader of the Lords, to investigate potential racial bias.

At the time, Keir Starmer, as director of public prosecutions, announced that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would not pursue criminal charges against Uddin, citing insufficient evidence.

Starmer clarified that the decision was based on the Lords' clerk's ruling, which allowed peers to nominate a primary home visited at least once a month. He emphasised that all available evidence, including utility records, was reviewed before the CPS concluded there was no basis for prosecution.

Starmer reportedly had no contact with Labour MPs or peers during the expenses investigation and met Alli only after his election in 2015.

Currently, Uddin sits as a crossbench peer, with recent contributions focusing on social policy and human rights.

The Times also confirmed that Lord Alli is being investigated by the House of Lords standards watchdog for allegedly failing to register interests in a separate matter.