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Picking up £300 a day for doing virtually nothing usually goes like clockwork for money-grabbing baron Lord Hanningfield.

The 73-year-old peer is ripping off taxpayers to the tune of thousands of pounds by simply turning up and clocking in to the Lords.

He often spends barely half an hour there before turning on his heels and leaving again – racking up his £300 daily attendance allowance without taking part in any votes, discussions or meetings.

But now he was facing a Parliamentary probe – after the Mirror exposed his shameless scam.

On one occasion we photographed him arriving at the Lords and leaving again just 21 minutes later – earning him more than £14 a minute.

It is barely time to walk to the chamber for his attendance to be officially noted.

Shockingly in just one month this year he claimed £5,700 with his quick “clock in, clock out” technique.

Hanningfield has previous for milking the system. He spent nine months behind bars for fiddling his accounts in the last Westminster expenses scandal.

Now he has his snout in the trough again – claiming more than £50,000 since he returned to Parliament in April 2012.

But up until the start of October this year he attended NO committee meetings, made NO speeches and asked NO questions in the House despite his lucrative expenses claims.

The former Tory front-bencher, who had the party whip withdrawn when he was jailed, was followed for 19 days in July by our undercover reporters.

And they compiled a Diary of Disgrace revealing that for 11 days out of the 19 he spent less than 40 minutes each time inside of Parliament.

The Lord turns up each day to have his attendance noted by a clerk – but there are no checks on how long he stays for him to qualify for his allowance.

Our expose raises serious questions over whether other peers are claiming excessive amounts simply for popping in and out of the 300-year-old chamber which costs more than £100million a year to run.

It also piles pressure on Westminster watchdogs to hold peers more accountable for their expenses claims.

Although the Mirror completed its investigation at the end of July, we had to wait six months until Hanningfield’s claims were made public on the

Parliamentary website.

Hanningfield – real name Paul White – has claimed he is working to “rebuild his political career” following his prison stint.

But on July 16 our reporters secretly shot video footage of his normal daily routine.

We saw him drive 15 minutes from his home in West Hanningfield, Essex, to Ingatestone station where he parked his blue Audi A3 at 1.20pm.

He bought a £25 return ticket at the automated machine on the platform and caught the 1.32pm train to London, where he switched to the Underground. We filmed him arriving at Westminster Tube station at 2.36pm.

Hanningfield accessed Parliament by ducking into a private door inside the station leading to an underground passage to the Houses of Parliament at 2.37pm.

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He appeared smart and professional, looking like he was ready to take on a day’s work, possibly joining in an important debate in the main chamber.

But after strolling through the House and getting his attendance recorded by the Journal Office, he was off again – leaving via the same entrance at 3.01pm.

Our video proves Hanningfield was inside just 24 minutes and five seconds to qualify for his £300 fee.

He slowly walked through the tube station, with the clock overhead clearly showing the time as 3.03pm.

He then jumped on a Circle and District line train to head home.

At 4.15pm we saw him arrive back at Ingatestone, get in his car and return to his £700,000 bungalow up a leafy lane in West Hanningfield village, in Essex.

It was a packed schedule in the Lords that day, but Hanningfield played no part in affairs of state including a statement on Northern Ireland, discussion of the Care Bill by the entire House, and a debate on the Congo. The House of Lords finished for the day at 10. 27pm - more than six hours after Hanningfield arrived home to put his feet up.

But that didn’t stop Lord Hanningfield claiming a full day’s attendance rate of £300.

Our reporters witnessed this same pattern occurring again and again throughout the month of July.

The longest time he spent in Parliament was on July 30th - the final day of the summer session - and it lasted 5 hours and 12 minutes.

Parliamentary records show Lord Hanningfield “absent” for eight votes which took place during July.

These were votes on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on July 8th, Offender Rehabilition Bill on July 9th, Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on July 10th, Local Audit and Accountability Bill on July 15th, Mesothelioma Bill on July 17th, Intellectual Property Bill on July 23rd, EU: Police and Criminal Justice Measure on July 23rd, and the Local Audit and Accountability Bill on July 24th.

On July 8th Lord Hanningfield spent 34 minutes in Parliament on the day of the vote on the Marriage Bill, arriving at 2.35pm and leaving at 3.09pm.

The next day he stayed for just 27 minutes when there was a vote on the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. He arrived at 2.35pm loaded down with Marks and Spencers shopping bags, and left at 3.02pm.

He arrived back at Ingatestone train station at 4.15pm, missing the vote as well as statements on the National Curriculum.

The main chamber of the Lords finished at 10.17pm - more than seven hours after he left.

But he always made sure his attendance was noted to qualify for his £300.

On top of that he also claimed £471 in travel costs for July, covering the price of his train ticket and the car park charge at Ingatestone train station.

The House of Lords Guide to Financial Support for Members clearly states: “Members who certify that they have carried out appropriate Parliamentary work are entitled to claim a daily allowance of £300 for each qualifying day of attendance at Westminster."

Hanningfield began claiming expenses upon his return to Parliament in April last year after his time behind bars.

He claimed £51,300 in attendance allowance between April 2012 and July 2013 but made no speeches in any parliamentary debate.

His silence was finally broken in October by taking part in a debate on East Anglia’s rail network.

Lord Hanningfield was caught in the last expenses scandal that exposed parliamentarians for claiming public cash for duck houses, flatscreen televisions and cleaning out moats.

In July, 2011, he was found guilty of wrongly claiming nearly £14,000 after the jury heard he claimed £174 for overnight stays in London when he was not in the capital.

He was released in September 2011 after three months before being placed on a home detention curfew.

Lord Hanningfield has paid back around £70,000 for false expenses claims on the orders of a court.

The system of overnight stay allowances for peers was scrapped after Lord Hanningfield and Lord Taylor of Warwick were jailed.

The new £300 attendance fee was bought in to simplify the system and pay peers for their work in Parliament on behalf of the taxpayers they are supposed to serve.

The system of “clocking in” was introduced by the Senior Salaries Review Board which promised to shake up the system at the Lords.

Hanningfield began his working life as Britain’s youngest pig farmer at the tender age of 15.

He was educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford and earned a farming scholarship in the US before returning to Britain.

He joined the National Farmers’ Union and by 22 was president of its quality pigs committee.

His career with the NFU gave him a taste for politics and, aged 29, became an councillor for Essex County Council, which he went on to lead between 2001 and 2010.

He was made a life peer in 1998 after a long career in local politics, and took the title of Lord Hanningfield from his home village, West Hanningfield in Essex, where his family still own a farm.

He stepped up to the House of Lords and entered national politics, keeping his role as council leader whilst representing the Tories in Parliament.

Between 1997 and 2001 he was deputy chair and Conservative group leader of the Local Government Association.

He rose to become a shadow minister in 2005.

He was behind a parliamentary question that same year revealing how Tony Blair spent more than £1,800 of public money on cosmetics and make-up artists.

The peer claims to live a normal lifestyle, shopping in Marks & Spencer, and living home alone with his dog.

It was in 2009 when he found himself under the spotlight due to his expenses claims whilst serving in the Lords.

Last night Labour MP John Mann, who campaigned to clean up the Commons, called for Hanningfield to be booted out of the Lords.

He added: “There needs to be a full investigation into how he has been allowed to get away with it. We need to give the House of Lords a proper,

transparent spring cleaning.”