The Scottish National Party have said they will contact Scotland Yard urging a criminal investigation into claims members of the House of Lords are buying their peerages. SNP MP Angus MacNeil who uncovered the ‘cash for honours’ scandal in 2006 will write to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police following comments from Lord Oakeshott this week which revealed the practice is still common place. In his resignation statement Lord Oakeshott said, 'my efforts to expose and end cash for peerages in all parties, including our own, and help get the Lords elected have failed.'
Commenting, Angus MacNeil MP said: “Lord Oakeshott's comments are bigger than any admission that emerged through the last cash for honours investigation. I'd be surprised if Scotland Yard did not at least do a scoping investigation on this. I will be writing to request they do so in light of these explosive remarks from Lord Oakeshott."
“His claims resurrects this whole scandal, and we need full disclosure of which members of the House of Lords he is talking about, and what they gave in return for a peerage. Under the Westminster system, we have the ludicrous situation that there are far more legislators who are appointed than elected - and people in Scotland elect only 4 per cent of the Westminster parliamentarians who hold powers over the economy, welfare, defence, our place in Europe, and many other crucial areas of policy."
“The SNP's long-standing position is that we believe those making laws should be elected by the people, and therefore we do not nominate members to the House of Lords. If the rest of the UK want to keep funding the unelected House of Lords, that is a matter for them. A Yes vote means that people in Scotland can get rid of the expensive and unrepresentative Westminster tier - saving around £50 million a year in not sending MPs and peers to London- which means more cost effective and fairer government.”
