Disgraced former Essex CC leader Lord Hanningfield claimed £5,700 in Parliamentary attendance allowances in July – despite not attending any House of Lords debates or committee meetings, newspapers have today reported.

According to an investigation in The Daily Mirror, the peer, who was enobled in 1998, claimed the £300 daily allowance fee on 19 separate occasions.

Members of the House of Lords are entitled to claim the allowance if they attend a sitting and there is no suggestion that Lord Hanningfield, whose real name is Paul White, breached any Parliamentary rules.

Lord Hanningfield told the Mirror he used half the money to cover expenses and the remainder to pay electricity bills and buy food and so was not profiting from the allowance system.

He also claimed that ‘at least half' of peers also check in to claim Parliamentary their expenses.

In 2011 Lord Hanningfield was sentenced to nine months in prison for falsely claiming more than £14,000 of Parliamentary expenses by claiming for overnight stays in London when he had in fact been driven home 50 miles.

Subsequent to his release nine weeks into his sentence, he later blamed the charges on a ‘confusing' House of Lords expenses scheme and the demands of his two jobs - as shadow business transport and council leader.

Lord Hanningfield said he had not realised it was illegal to claim a £174-a-night allowance for overnight stays in London when he actually returned home to Essex to cover other office costs