Peer who’s a waste of space

Before the Ashcroft saga, most people had never heard of ‘non-doms’ (persons not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes). It doesn’t mean what it seems, since many do live here for part of the time.

I’ve no idea where Lord Ashcroft lives, though I do see him from time to time in the House of Lords and presume he has somewhere to stay in London.

There are several inter-locking issues here. One is whether a person who does not pay tax in this country on most of his income should be able to sit in Parliament and take part in making laws.

It’s the inversion of the democratic call of ‘no taxation without representation’ into ‘no representation without taxation’.

My Liberal Democrat colleague Lord Matthew Oakeshott has calculated that Lord Ashcroft has avoided paying tax to the tune of £127 million since he entered the Lords in 2000. A second issue is who calls the shots in the Conservative Party. Their candidate, Zac Goldsmith, was told by leader Cameron to end his non-dom status at once or step down.

But Tory peer Michael Ashcroft has been able to string along the party leadership for ten years – and until last week Cameron was still saying his tax affairs were his own business.

The third issue is different but equally important. Ashcroft was made a peer on the same list of ‘working peers’ as I was. Since then, he has made an average of one speech every two years, never asked an oral question, never tabled an amendment to a Bill, and voted in about 16 per cent of divisions.

In that time, I’ve made hundreds of speeches, tabled thousands of amendments, asked thousands of questions and voted in about 40 per cent of divisions.

I’m not bragging and I wish it were more, but I live in the North and unless I’m in London I can’t just ‘pop in to vote’.

Lord Ashcroft may have the power to decide which Conservative candidates win seats at the election, but as a peer he is, in my view, a waste of a space.