Lord Swaraj Paul being investigated in parliamentary expenses scam - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Lord Swaraj Paul has become the latest peer to be investigated by the British police in the parliamentary expenses scam, taking the total number of parliamentarians under scanner to five peers and four MPs. Lord Taylor of Warwick is also being investigated by the police. There are probably two or three more cases being looked at by the police. The list, with the addition of Lord Paul, a friend of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, will pose a huge challenge to the Labour party in an election year. Paul, a high profile politician, gave 45,000 pounds to Brown's leadership campaign and has also reportedly donated more then 400,000 pounds to the party. Two months ago, it was revealed that Paul, one of Britain's richest men with a 500 million fortune, had claimed 38,000 pounds by saying that a hotel he owned in Oxfordshire was his "main home". He said that he had been living in a small one-bedroom flat on the property when, in fact, it was occupied by the hotel's manager. Paul admitted that he had never actually slept there, but said he was entitled to call it his main home as it was available for his use. At that time, Paul's main residence was in London where he had lived for more than 40 years. However, by saying that his main home was outside London he had been able to claim overnight expenses intended for peers who live outside the capital. Police decided to launch a formal investigation into Paul after a report published in The Telegraph was reviewed by a joint panel of detectives and the CPS. Police passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in November on four of the politicians: Baroness Uddin, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, Lord Hanningfield and Elliot Morley MP. Another two files were sent off last week. The CPS is expected to decide on whether to press charges from next month.