THE House of Lords expenses system is wide open to abuse, an internal report warned yesterday.

Auditors said one peer had been recorded as attending Parliament on a sitting day — meaning the member could have claimed £300 — despite having been abroad at the time.

The report also pointed out that there was no definition of the “appropriate parliamentary work” members must have carried out in order to receive the tax-free daily allowances.

The internal audit team at the Lords randomly sampled 110 claims from the last financial year and found they all appeared valid.

However, auditors added: “Although evidence indicates that the current level of control within the finance department is effective, the scheme itself continues to exhibit certain weaknesses which could potentially be exploited for personal gain.”

The report, obtained through a freedom of information request by the Press Association, follows hard on the heels of an even more damning assessment published this week by the Electoral Reform Society.

That report revealed that peers who had failed to speak in the chamber over the past year had claimed nearly £1.3 million in allowances and expenses.

It also found that 30 peers had failed to speak during the whole of the last parliament, yet claimed over £750,000 in total.

Electoral Reform Society chief executive Katie Ghose said: “The case is now stronger than ever for serious reform of Britain’s unelected upper chamber — a chamber that is spiralling out of control, both in terms of size and cost.

“We urgently need to fix this broken house before the situation gets any worse.”