A DISGRACED peer is enjoying a taxpayer funded golden silence in the House of Lords.

Lord Hanningfield is embroiled in his fourth expenses scandal after it emerged he claimed £86,614 between 2009 and 2015.

National figures out yesterday suggest, despite pocketing the cash, he did not speak in a single debate during that time.

He may actually have spoken once, about two years ago during a debate about railway stations.

It is the latest controversy involving the former Essex pig farmer Paul White turned leader of Essex County Council.

Some periods of silence were enforced with Hanningfield spending different periods in jail and suspended from the House, both for his creative ways of claiming expenses.

He is not the only voluntarily mute peer, according to the Electoral Reform Society.

The campaign group revealed 116 silent peers have claimed £1.3million in allowances and expenses in the past year.

30 peers did not speak during the whole of the last Parliament, while claiming £772,719.

Chief Executive Katie Ghose said: “These figures show that the House of Lords is well and truly bust.

“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.”

The House of Lords recently welcomed 45 new members at a cost of about £1.2million per year.

They will be sitting alongside the shameless representative from West Hanningfield.

The 74-year-old was jailed for nine months in 2011 for fiddling his Parliamentary expenses.

He falsely claimed £13,379 for overnight stays in London when he was actually at home.

He served nine weeks.

Essex County Council then investigated his almost £300,000 in expenses while leader at County Hall and claimed he had spent £50,000 wrongly on the council’s credit card.

No criminal charges followed and the council abandoned the claim after he refused to pay and it emerged it would cost an estimated £110,000 to try and get it back.

Lord Hanningfield denies any wrongdoing in his former role as leader.

Last year he was suspended from the Hopuse of Lords for a year and ordered to repay £3,300.

He was visiting the House to claim his £300 daily allowance and over one month left 11 times after less than 40 minutes.

The Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee said the peer, jailed in 2011 over his parliamentary expenses, should face the maximum sanctions and suspended him until the end of the last Parliament.

He claimed he was caught out due to a technicality, namely not being able to provide evidence of doing any work while there.

Lord Hanningfield and Essex County Council were approached for comments.

Lord Hanningfield could not be reached and County Hall declined to add anything to previous statements about his alleged conduct.