The Laidlaw documents
Following a Freedom of Information request to the , the 大象传媒 has received relating to the dispute between the Commission and Lord Laidlaw over his failure to become tax resident in the UK.
The documents include the minutes of the original meeting on April 2 2004 between Lord Stevenson, the Chairman of the Commission, and Lord Laidlaw, who was then plain Irvine Laidlaw.
They record Lord Laidlaw as saying that he had 鈥渃onsulted with his tax advisers and would inform the Revenue of his intention to become resident in the UK for tax purposes鈥 as of April 6 2004.
We鈥檝e also been sent Lord Laidlaw鈥檚 letter to Lord Stevenson of March 21 2007, which says:
鈥淕iven the vote in the House of Commons on replacing the Lords with a fully elected chamber, there is considerable uncertainty on whether both you and I will have a job in the future. I think more clarity is need on the Government鈥檚 plans before making changes in my tax position.鈥
That rather implies that Lord Laidlaw isn鈥檛 planning to stop being a tax exile any time soon.
Finally we have a copy of Lord Stevenson鈥檚 reply to Lord Laidlaw of April 18. It says:
鈥淚 should make it plain that the various reasons in your letter, some personal, some political, for not moving your tax residency are, in our view, irrelevant to the matter in hand which is simply that we expect you to honour the commitment you made鈥.
Lord Stevenson goes on to say that he expects Lord Laidlaw to backdate his tax residency to April 6 2004, the date he originally agreed to become a tax resident.
If Lord Laidlaw complies, this could be very expensive for him. He is worth an estimated 拢700m and might have to pay tens of millions of pounds of tax to Her Majesty鈥檚 Revenue and Customs, if paying all the tax that would be due from the past three years.
So the documents show why Lord Laidlaw is not showing any great enthusiasm for following the instructions of his party leader, David Cameron, to honour the undertakings he gave to the Lords Appointments Commission.
For the full set of papers,
I'm 
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So a gentleman's word is no longer his bond. Call the bounder to a duel on Hampstead Heath.
Congratulations for digging into this interesting story. To me, Lord Stevenson's behaviour is at least as interesting as Lord Laidlaw's. First, he appears to be encouraging Lord Laidlaw to submit a false tax return - a return stating that he is resident when he is not. Is this really the sort of behaviour we expect from the head of the quango in charge of vetting new peers for probity ? Secondly, Lord Stevenson seems to be suggesting that Lord Laidlaw gave an undertaking to become tax resident from 6 April 2004, when it is clear from Lord Stevenson's own minute that Lord Laidlaw only gave an undertaking to inform the Revenue of his intention to become tax resident from that date. Do you know whether Lord Laidlaw did indeed fulfil that undertaking, or not ? And how can it be that so august a personage as Lord Stevenson can confuse an undertaking to write to the Revenue stating an intention to become tax resident, with an undertaking actually to become tax resident ? Who knows what contingencies may have frustrated Lord Laidlaw's intention ? But as I say, the really interesting news story is Lord Stevenson's proposal that Lord Laidlaw should tell porkies on his tax return. No doubt you have a page one story on this under production.
What about Michael Ashcroft?
As one of the largest financial supporters of the Conservative Party, Lord Laidlaw is typical of "absent landlords" who still influence political life in the U.K.! However, in the past he has also offered to help the Labour government with "investment" in the English City Academy projects but this gesture was refused after he asked for certain pre-conditions? As a Scottish tax exile, he also "dabbled" with the idea of "investing" in Scottish schools but when the Scottish Ministers again learned there were certain strings attached to his offer, it was immediately refused! Scottish Education, as he well knows, has always been a fiercely protected egalitarian system! Lord Laidlaw regularly complains about falling standards in Scotland's education system? Yet, each year 50 per cent of its young people go on to further or higher education, one of the highest figures anywhere in the developed world, according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.)! Unfortunately, the vast majority of these Scots graduates have to go elsewhere in the U.K. or overseas to use their expertise! As history has proved, Scotland's greatest export has always been its highly educated people from which the rest of the world has benefited!
Lachie Todd.
This is a typical example of 大象传媒 bias, what exactly does this story have to do with your Blog?.
This is a political story not a business story, this blog could have been written by a Labour spin doctor.
It is also strange that you bring this story up just as the Met Police have sent to the CPS the files on the 'cash for honour' scandal, it seems to me that you are trying to deflect further attention from the corrupt labour government we have at present.
Finally, if you are all for using the Freeedom of Information act to dig out stories, I ask that you also play fair and publish the 'Balen report', of course you would not as it probally shows how biased the 大象传媒 and it's reporters are.
Are we really saying that the condition of the Lords Appointments Commission for Irvine Laidlaw to become Lord Laidlaw was the paying of
"tens of millions of pounds of tax to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs" ?
If that's not cash for honours, what is ?
Is it not for the Inland Revenue to decide the residency of (potential) taxpayers?
"So ABN is a Right Royal Mess , who tried to pull the wool over whose eyes, there is more to this than meets the eye? someone was out to make a fast buck!!!!!!!